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CARPENTERS 
WORLD TRAVELS 


Familiar Talks About Countries 
and Peoples 


WITH THE AUTHOR ON THE SPOT AND THE 
READER IN HIS HOME, BASED ON A 
HALF MILLION MILES OF TRAVEL 
OVER THE GLOBE 


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IN THE LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


Although Spain could not hold her overseas possessions against the 
wave of independence that swept over all the Americas, she left an in- 
delible impression upon their religion and architecture. 


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LANDS OF THE ANDES 
AND) LAB DESERT 


BY 


FRANK G”CARPENTER 
OF Fe Pe Od et hak Cao 


WITH I104 ILLUSTRATIONS 
FROM ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS 


GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
1920 | 


COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY CARPENTERS WORLD 

TRAVELS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED 

IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY 
LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


N THE publication of this volume on my travels in 
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, I wish to 
thank the Secretary of State for letters that have 
given me the assistance of our official representatives 

in those republics. I thank also our Secretary of Agricul- 
ture and our Secretary of Labour for appointing me an 
honorary commissioner of their departments in foreign 
lands. Their credentials have been of great value, mak- 
ing accessible sources of information seldom opened to the 
ordinary traveller. 

I acknowledge also the assistance and codperation of 
Mr. Dudley Harmon, my editor, and of Miss Josephine 
Lehmann and Miss Ellen McB. Brown, associate editors, 
in the revision of the notes dictated or penned by me on the 
ground. 

While most of the illustrations in CARPENTER’S WORLD 
TRAVELS are from my own negatives, those in this volume 
have been supplemented by photographs from the Colom- 
bian Government Information Bureau, the Pan American 
Union, the Guayaquil and Quito Railway, the United 
Fruit Company, W. R. Grace & Company, Arthur Dubois, 
W. Duval Brown, A. A. Hauff, the Publisher’s Photo 


Service, and Ewing Galloway. 
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CONTENTS 


INTRODUCING A CONTINENT 

FROM PANAMA TO THE EQUATOR . 

A MopeErRN CAVE OF ALADDIN 
GUAYAQUIL 

A LAND oF Cacao 

THE CAPITAL OF ECUADOR 

THE HEAD-HUNTING JIVAROS 

Down THE DESERT COAST OF PERU . 
THE CITY OF PIZARRO . 

IN THE SHOPS AND MARKETS OF LIMA 
On THE Wor Lp’s HIGHEST RAILROAD 
CERRO DE PAsco 

AMERICAN INDUSTRY IN THE HEART OF PERU 
By RoLLeER CoASTER DOWN THE ANDES. 
AREQUIPA, CITY OF THE STARS 

FARMING IN THE LAND OF THE Sky . 
THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCAS 
THE Cuzco oF To-DAY . 

STORIES OF BURIED TREASURE 


SLAVES OF ALCOHOL AND COCAINE 


64 


93 
104 
112 
120 
127 
136 
145 
156 
165 
174 


CHAPTER 


XX] 
XXII 
XXIII 
XXIV 
XXV 
XXVI 
XXVII 
XXVIII 
X XIX 


INDEX 


CONTENTS 


On LAKE TITICACA 

THE TIBET OF SOUTH AMERICA 
SUNDAY IN LA Paz 

THE First City iN AMERICA 
THE AYMARA INDIANS 

From LA Paz To OrRuRO 


THE GREAT TIN MINEs . 


DOWNSPOUTS OF THE PLATEAU . 


THE BAckKwoops OF BOLIVIA 


PAGE 


186 
194 
202 
214 
223 
232 
240 


252 


. 204 


275 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Overlooking a Spanish patio . . . Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 
PPAR AMASDATK ous one RNA tone aM Ry IU cA ath ae 6 
ihe narbourOl Waltagenaue ese nan sai) ioe cates ,, 
The city of Bogota EL eT MEU ey CONE MRNA OS oes TTPO Ee 
Boadin gia river DOA raid: sagt e ea an el Ur AVA 
Onathe covernmentraininen iin hry arp entan keke hea 
The world’s greatest emerald mines ya vere pura RP ul Bo 
PCEGIOMIDIAN Wate©ria liens When WLW ARIS Vi We ge licen RED 
PION KEVF LEIDEN CATHICLS ru Vi ines ti feta cumin te May ianegines 
eeiC ESCA GKAIN CsA Va GUI y penn shee chk Galles ginal 
BAIN DOOIMOUSCS rev) Th Gr teat, PRA ee CLA OLR IO 
DALAT AsT Al Chee ae Tro Nuch wy Atuye Eh ER Aen ae IP tema ae I 
Wevingicacao yey RTO TIMINGS AN te NMR aM 
Cacao harvesters going to an PATON ESM es NO oh RAEI 9 
Barms on)the mountainsides) 2) (iu. ee Whew i 38 
MIOUNERGCOLODAXL] tiene aise Hecate ep hal  ean bam 1 LAC) 
BaAlISREWOOCS Wenteriti abies childs ke Ae Aye, Ae ae eC 
MEER OEVILSEINOSE)) i) 25h a eo a bee y nett eed © 
PETIT CIVIL EO te igiy a0) Pp oy ip ae tah ahaa AR LA he ee AT 
Pe riementitnan NEA, 32 ii) Ae ae BVO IY 6 ta Gat 
iidian hut in theinterior!)’. /: euaieeaes ls hile awe y Be 
Begging in a railroad station WRU: ao eke 2 
APA CARTONS SANG UNG hy ee a anit nth Or Guo en NOS 
Fish peddlers meeting asteamer . . . . . . 70 


Xl 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Irrigating the desert 

_ A unique landing arrangement 

In the city of Pizarro 

Woodwork carved by the raters 
In the Plaza de Armas . 
Mounted constabulary . 
Peruvian Senate Chamber . 
Business street in Lima. 

Indian fruit peddler 

In the harbour of Callao 

The world’s highest railroad 
Indian shepherd woman 

Crossing the Viscas Bridge 
Suspension bridge in the interior . 
Native mother and baby 

Street in Cerro de Pasco 
Children mine workers . 

A power plant in the Andes 
Patio process of ore treating 
“The Little Hell” 

Weird rock formation in the Noes 
Ships anchored off Mollendo 

On the road to Arequipa 

Old Arequipa 


The Harvard Guenter ard Mount Mich 


Juliaca 

A llama train 

Farms in the Cuzco Walley 

The fortress of Sacsahuaman . 

Inca masonry 

Stone seats overlooking iSacea nearer 
Xil 


FACING PAGE 
ve. 
74 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING PAGE 


SAIS COLLUTC: DIGGK 0.) vai tation ey eee Mae etal yk 
Meals “DULL bIDY thes INCAS!) 100) Sees eon ier a Ohi CE Be 
Bie GatnedralOMmGuzcOpl us iihedh een akan ran LSS 
BDODDIN GM LHe IPOralEes: 4.) Woo eal awe Moon sok 1 O2 
streetscene)... Soba AR he Nagle ania ML TOR 
Ruins of an Inca ferinle OUP ee i Wwe Naiian RTE De Ni RUA f 956) 
Astobogegan slide of the ancients |). 2.0.00.) Ys) 107 
Quichua water carrier MMe ck INERT be Mena Rw Na Tp a F 
Native pottery PSU MPL bE Dar ae MPa! Ponto cath 
Mepetabless DVI the; Dues Tala thieebtrt ives) Cowman ten ALES 
Reatker Gay On tne: plateaus © te Dns tar ona Ms) ES 
A native loom . . PD eey Siamese Maus, SCOP EUE Te L7G 
Indians and their flares OY) eo ae Vee at Nr are Op (3 
Molin grin Pering lt Wis) SUN rity MRING ORES MAUI CN Ep 
Farms along Lake ation VoonVs | eet Masten th een age YI) ee, LE 
SAT KIStIN CAKE RL ItICACA YE Von ial alas omarion Mash ee ULOO 
Native balsas . . AMAA ee Meme sep, vate OE 
The world’s highest eapieal {FN a NG A Math HL Fw 
esiientialrstreel imi Paz vn). Peay AL beta LOO 
PEclerssOIVLOUNL TImManiey (iy ci sitetnien clits ek azOO 
A street merchant .. CDE CaM Oran CRT SCHL IIS Ae 98, 
A chola in her “Sunday best” LP AE NG RELAT Ror) Sieg OMT LO 
NINDS Ab az StTeeLen uw tout orcas mare en Labia LO 
ESL TAN OG CEMELCLYV Stan \ Pk ial. wi alates otha Abel cia Zak te ALE 
Pa CIONELOOOT WAV d) ts. taht, len eMr ein omen Sinl teh PLA 
PORTILLO LIAN LLATIACOS 1) cc Pa) cuenta einen TL Sona 
STEAM ITINTI TICS 1 orks kt 5) 2, eee SIC CO Rds eke ta ee 
A prehistoric stone figure Ser ee WON UO LA Rt Do 
An Aymara Indian OR (ie Sigs tees KAR ED ERC hae 8 
SRICAMENE WING FECESS /1/) ot) une Maem Wate cular nua \nee g 
PRIMA SCUOOL Nis poe aan ade aw eo eueti > (AULT 20 


Xill 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


_ A native festival 

Weaving a poncho . 

Scene in Oruro 

Chola business woman . 

Sacks of tin ore 

Primitive ore crusher 

Lakes of borax 
Balconied street in Potosi . 

A mountain of silver 

Road through the mountains . 
A railway refreshment stand 
Bolivian wood cutters 

On a motor highway 

Indian raftsmen 

Backwoods Bolivia 

Gathering coca leaves 

A native wedding ceremony 
Indian brave in holiday costume . 


XIV 


FACING PAGE 
231 
231 
2338 
239 
242 
243 
243 
246 
247 
254 

- 255 
WR BS 
258 
259 
262 
263 
270 
271 


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CHAPTER | 


INTRODUCING A CONTINENT 


OUTH AMERICA! The words make my blood 
tingle. Of all the six continents I have visited, 
there is none that breathes more of adventure, of 
romance, of history, of rapidly increasing develop- 

ment, and of great opportunity. In the varied features 
of the land and its peoples, it is a whole world of possibili- 
ties. 

And what a world it is! | saw it first twenty-five years 
ago when | travelled the wilds in small boats, on mule- 
back, and on foot. | have since traversed many of the 
same routes in comfortable trains. During that first 
trip the Chilean transcontinental railway across the 
Andes was not yet completed, and to go from Valparaiso 
to Montevideo I went on a small steamer several thousand 
miles out of the way via Smyth’s Channel and the Strait 
of Magellan. Now there are several railroads connecting 
the Atlantic and the Pacific, and two days will carry one 
from Santiago de Chile to Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 
that first trip I had to sail from the mouth of the Parana 
to Rio de Janeiro, from where a coastal steamer carried 
me lazily on to the mouth of the Amazon. There are now 

I 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


railways crossing Uruguay and Brazil to Rio. It is the 
same in other parts of the interior of South America. Rail- 
ways are opening up the eastern foothills of the Andes, 
and my last journey to the heart of Paraguay was made 
over a highway of steel. 

While slowly but surely a network of rails is enclosing 
the continent, above it have sprung into being multitudi- 
nous airplanes, which vie with the condor and other birds in 
their flight. Twice every week passenger planes make 
the trip up the Magdalena River of Colombia to Bogota, 
the capital. Passenger and mail planes flying between 
Buenos Aires and Montevideo, the capitals of Argentina 
and Uruguay, have brought those two great cities of At- 
lantic South America within less than two hours’ ride of 
each other, a saving in time of ten or twelve hours. Quito 
and Lima, the capitals of Ecuador and Peru, miles above 
sea level, will be on the air routes of the near future. The 
Andes have been flown over again and again, and South 
America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, will soon be 
covered by a fleet of aérial mails. 

In all my travels in South America I have been con- 
tinually amazed at the extent of the continent and the 
magnificent distances of its ten republics and three colo- 
nies. The Isthmus of Panama is farther from the Strait 
of Magellan than the distance from Los Angeles to Yoko- 
hama, Japan, and the continent, where it is widest, is 
five hundred miles farther across than from Cape Cod to 
the Golden Gate. 

North America is larger in area than South America, but 
our continent has also more waste land. Its mighty heart 
is the Rocky Mountain plateau, a desert region that ex- 
tends from Alaska to Central America, and our great 

2 


INTRODUCING A CONTINENT 


northern bulge is covered with snow and ice a good part 
of the year. South America, as the merchant would put 
it, is a yard wide and almost all wool. The Andes form a 
lean strip at the west, and from them vast plains and 
plateaus reach far east tothe sea. There are great patches 
of fertile irrigated lands along the Pacific, and the mighty 
plains that slope down to the Atlantic manywheres rival 
the valleys of the Nile and the Ganges in their potential 
productivity. The continent has, all told, one eighth of 
the land upon earth, and the greater portion of it is still 
to be conquered by man. 

The size of the South American republics astonished 
me. Some seemed mere spots on the map, but I found 
Ecuador bigger than either Germany or France; Paraguay 
is more than equal to two South Carolinas; and Bolivia 
could hold fifty Belgiums, or two states as big as Texas, 
and have room to spare. Argentina has one third as 
much land as the forty-eight United States, and you can 
hardly put your foot down on a spot that will not raise 
grass or grain. The long shoestring of Chile, if cut up into 
squares, would more than equal seven states as big as 
Ohio, Virginia, or Kentucky. We think of Brazil as a 
far-off country of minor extent from whence come coffee 
and rubber, but it is so big that it could cover the main 
body of the United States like a blanket and have enough 
land left over to tuck in ten Maines under the edges. 

All this vast territory is still in the making. Our dis- 
coveries in sanitation while building the Panama Canal 
showed that man can conquer the tropics, and the vast 
valley of the Amazon may yet become a region of culti- 
vated farms. Central, southern, and eastern Brazil lie 
in a great plateau that will produce grain, coffee, cotton, 


3 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


and sugar, besides pasturage for cattle. The Parana 
basin, including Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina, is po- 
tentially the richest meat and bread basket on earth. The 
same might also be said of the eastern slopes of the Andes 
and the irrigated valleys bordering the Pacific. Even the 
lands at the Strait of Magellan, a thousand miles nearer 
the South Pole than the Cape of Good Hope, have a 
climate so mild that cattle feed out of doors there all the 
year round and sheep have populated the islands adjoin- 
ing. 

As to minerals, since the days of Pizarro South America 
has been the El Dorado of gold and silver and of emeralds 
and diamonds as well. It has now become the continent of 
tin, copper, and iron. Under the famous silver mines of 
Cerro de Pasco, Peru, | saw an American company mining 
great beds of copper, and in Bolivia watched the Indians 
breaking up ore that was almost pure tin. Nearly half the 
tin of the world comes from Bolivia. On the coast of 
Chile is an iron mountain from which an ocean caravan of 
steamers is carrying ore north to the mills of the Bethlehem 
Steel Company, and on the highlands of Brazil are de- 
posits of iron comparable to ours about Lake Superior. 
In every way the South American continent is fast growing 
in wealth. Its development is being carried on largely 
with money furnished by us. Since the World War we 
have bought more than six hundred million dollars’ worth 
of South American government bonds, and our invest- 
ments in all sorts of enterprises in those countries amount 
to more than three thousand million dollars. Our trade 
with our sister continent is rapidly growing. 

I have found the peoples of South America of intense 
human interest. The white man who governs the coun- 


4 


INTRODUCING A CONTINENT 


cry has all the feeling and the courtesy of the Spaniard. He 
is awaking to modern conditions and is responding to the 
spirit of twentieth-century progress. South America has 
always had more Indians than ever lived in the lands we 
possess, and to-day they are numbered by millions. They 
populate the highlands of the Andes and are found in the 
wilds of the Amazon. Some of them are savages whose 
favourite trophies are the heads of their enemies, cured 
and dried to a turn. 

In the North I travelled among the descendants of the 
Chibchas, who centuries ago had farms and houses and 
an organized government, and in the Far South I saw the 
remains of the Araucanians, Indians who were so brave 
that the Spaniards had to leave them unconquered. Be- 
tween the two are the Quichuas and the Aymards. The 
Quichuas were ruled by the Incas. They built houses 
and temples, they wove cloth and wrought in gold and 
silver, and they watered their fields from irrigation canals 
hundreds of miles long. The Aymards were also more or 
less semi-civilized. Both of these nations are now practi- 
cally the slaves of the whites. Their present condition 
is described in these travels, as is also that of the more 
savage Indians found on the eastern slopes of the Andes. 
Farther over in the basins of the Parana and the Amazon 
are the gentle Guaranis, who have intermarried with the 
whites and have become largely civilized. 

The travels of this book cover only the northwestern 
part of the continent. Most of our time will be spent on 
the high plateau of the Andes, which, upheld by two 
great ranges, once was the home of the great Inca civiliza- 
tion. We shall visit also the tropical lands to the east 
that slope down to the Orinoco and the Amazon, and shall 


xy 
7 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


pass through the great desert that, with its valley oases 
_ populated by whites, runs for two thousand miles from 
north to south along the western coast of South America, 
backed by the thirsty walls of the Andes. 

The countries included are Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, 
and Bolivia, all of which are of perennial interest to me, 
and which I hope will have a like place in the minds of my 
readers. 


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Colombia is the only country of South America that has ports on 
both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Cartagena, on the north coast, is 
an important point of export of balsam, rubber, coffee, and cacao. 


CHAPTER II 
FROM PANAMA TO THE EQUATOR 


AM seated on the deck of a little Peruvian vessel 

steaming along the western coast of Colombia only a 

few degrees north of the Equator. We left Balboa 

two days ago, going out as the sun was setting over 
the fortifications on the islands of Flamenco, Perico, and 
Naos, which guard the Panama Canal, and turning south- 
ward when not far from Taboga. We are now in the 
doldrums, the zone of equatorial calms, where there is so 
little wind that north-bound sailing vessels are hardly 
able to reach the Canal. The air is almost still and 
would be stifling were it not for a slight breeze from the 
northeast trade winds. 

The sea appears to steam; it is a vast expanse of molten 
silver, rippled now and then by the light winds that 
transform it into an undulating sheet of diamonds, rising 
and falling under the tropical sun. Here the Pacific is 
widest, its waters stretching westward for almost ten 
thousand miles before they reach Asia. This great ocean 
contains nearly half of all the salt water on the globe. 

Our steamer belongs to a company subsidized by the 
government of Peru, and its fuel comes from the desert oil 
fields of that country. It can make sixteen knots and it 
moves over the quiet sea without perceptible vibration. 
Especially constructed for travel in the tropics, its cabins 
have large windows and doors opening on the deck. They 


7 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


are seldom closed except in bad weather, and one can 
sit in his room as though upon a porch and look far out 
over the ocean. 

The meal hours are strictly Latin American. They 
begin with desayuno, which is a cup of black coffee and a 
cracker served in the cabin on rising. At eleven, in the 
dining salon, comes almuerzo, or breakfast, consisting of 
soup and fish, steak or eggs, and bananas or oranges. At 
four o’clock in the afternoon we have tea, and at seven 
a table-d’héte dinner. The cooking is Spanish, the bills 
of fare are printed in that language, and the waiters are 
natives of South America. ) 

We carry a supply of live meat with us, and I awake 
every morning thinking I am on my mountain farm in 
Virginia. There is a bleating of sheep, a crowing of 
cocks, and a quacking of geese and ducks. Now and 
then a cow moos or a pig squeals. On the upper deck 
within ten feet of where I am writing are two big coops 
full of chickens, ducks, and geese. The coops are two- 
story affairs walled with slats. The chickens are in the 
top story, some roosting and others poking their heads out 
to get at the water and corn in the troughs outside. The 
ducks and geese are in the compartments below. A little 
farther over are crates filled with potatoes and onions, and 
others containing oranges and pineapples. The sheep 
and cattle are in pens and stalls two decks below. 

If one of our sea-going cows should take it into her head 
to jump overboard, and succeed in swimming to shore, 
she would land on the west coast of Colombia. Our 
boat does not touch at any Colombian port on this trip, 
but I can tell you a good deal about that country, and can 
give you a bird’s-eye view of it as we steam south through 


8 


FROM PANAMA TO THE EQUATOR 


the placid sea. Colombia occupies the northwest corner 
of South America. From north to south it is cut by the 
three mighty ranges of the Andes, known as the Western, 
the Central, and the Eastern Cordilleras. Between those 
ranges are fertile valleys, and east of them are grassy 
plains, or llanos, sloping down to the Atlantic. It is a 
land of every climate, from the tropical to the frigid, 
and it has a plant and animal life similarly varied. The 
region about Bogota, the capital, eight or nine thousand 
feet above sea level, has a temperature throughout the 
year like that of New York in May. 

That great table-land was once the home of the Chib- 
chas, an Indian race that ranked with the Aztecs and the 
Incas in their civilization. They numbered more than a 
million and governed a territory as large as the combined 
areas of Belgium and Holland. Some of them were found 
even as far north as the Isthmus of Panama. At the 
height of their power and progress they irrigated land for 
farming, wove cotton into cloth, and had a knowledge of 
how to make utensils and ornaments of gold. Although 
they resisted the Spaniards for a long time they were 
finally conquered, and to-day only a few members remain 
of their once mighty tribes. 

Colombia is the only South American country fronting 
on both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, and thus has 
especial natural advantages for trade with the United 
States and the rest of the world. It has a coast line of 
almost five hundred miles on the Pacific and more than 
six hundred on the Caribbean Sea. From south to north 
its territory is longer than from New Orleans to St. Paul, 
and from east to west it is wider in some parts than from 
Baltimore to Chicago. All our Atlantic coast states, with 


9 


LANDS OF THE: ANDES AND ODE DESERT 


Ohio and West Virginia added, could be packed easily 
within its borders. It is eight times the size of New 
York, ten times as big as Kentucky, and as large as 
Germany, France, Holland, and Belgium combined. 
Colombia used to be much larger than it is now. It 
formerly included the territory of the neighbouring re- 
publics of Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama. The first 
two broke away within twenty years after freedom from 


Spain was won in the early part of the last century. 
Panama became independent in the revolution of 1903, 


when the United States had made up its mind to build the 
Panama Canal. 
The loss of Panama was keenly felt by the Colombians, 


and was for years the cause of great resentment against’ 


the United States. The people believed that not only had 
their country lost the great revenues incidental to the 
building and operation of the Canal but that their na- 
tional honour had been assailed. Finally, in 1921, the 
United States Senate ratified a treaty that provided for 
the payment of twenty-five million dollars to Colombia 
in five annual instalments. With this money, the Colom- 
bian government established a new fiscal system in ac- 
cordance with the best standards of the times, and was 
enabled to effect other improvements that will contribute 
greatly to her future progress and development. In view 
of the intense anti-American feeling that so long pre- 
vailed, it is gratifying to know that Colombia chose a 
commission of Americans to serve as her financial ad- 
visers in re-organizing the fiscal system. 

The shortest distance between the northern shore of 
Colombia and the United States is not so great as that 
between Philadelphia and Chicago. Tampa, Florida, is as 

10 


ee 


FROM PANAMA TO THE EQUATOR 


near Cartagena as New York is to St. Louis, and from 
that Colombian port to New Orleans is only four days of 
easy steaming. Barranquilla, near the mouth of the 
Magdalena River, is less than nineteen hundred miles from 
New York, and the trip can be made in five days. By 
way of the Panama Canal, ships from Boston can reach 
the west coast of Colombia by a voyage of a little more 
than two thousand miles. 

The chief Pacific port is Buenaventura, which has a 
population of less than seven thousand, a large percentage 
of which is Negro. The town is built on an island at the 
head of Buenaventura Bay, and at the mouth of the 
Dagua River. It is three hundred and sixty miles south of 
Panama, and the first port of call for south-bound steamers 
fromthe Canal. Buenaventura is eight miles from the 
open sea, and with the completion of improvements 
planned or under way it will have a good harbour, with an 
anchorage space about a mile long and a half mile wide. 
It is proposed to build a new city, including water- 
works, a system of sanitation, and paving, that can accom- 
modate fifty thousand inhabitants. 

Buenaventura is the outlet for the great Cauca River 
Valley, one of the most beautiful regions of the South 
American continent. It has been called a giant patio in 
the midst of the high mountains enclosing it, and the 
traditional politeness of its people has given it the name 
of “The Land of the Gentle Yes.”” Beginning near the 
Ecuadorian boundary, it runs northward between the 
Western and the Central Cordilleras at an altitude of 
more than three thousand feet above sea level. The 
valley is almost as large as California and its soil is as rich 
as that of our Pacific coast states. With proper develop- 

11 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


ment it will be one of the most productive agricultural 
districts of the country. 

A railway has been built from Buenaventura to Cali, the 
metropolis of the Cauca Valley. Cali is a city of thirty 
thousand or so. It has many picturesque old Spanish 
buildings, although in the business district they are being 
replaced by modern brick structures. This is the first 
stage of the journey from the Pacific to Bogota. The road 
crosses a pass five thousand feet high, whence there is an 
easy grade down to Cali. At first this line was so lightly 
constructed that when a heavy rain came, lasting for days, 
the rails were washed away. A call was sent all over the 
country for pack mules, and thousands of these animals 
were used to carry the freight until another, and more 
substantial, railroad track could be laid. 

The journey from Cali to Bogota is now made by boat, 
horse or muleback, and rail. Although the capital is 
only seven hundred miles from Barranquilla on the Carib- 
bean, and less than half as far from Buenaventura on the 
Pacific side, it has no through rail connection with either 
port. 

In 1921 an air service was inaugurated from Barran- 
quilla to Girardot and instead of the seven-day ride up the 
Magdalena River the trip may now be made in as many 
hours. From Girardot passengers may go on to Bogota 
by rail or may continue the trip by air, and may even 
engage a plane for flights to Cali or other interior cities. 
A plane recently covered the distance from Girardot to 
Bogota and back in twenty-two minutes, a saving in time 
over the railway trip of fifteen hours or more. 

The pilots are former German army aviators, and a 
large part of the operating capital is German money. 

12 


FROM PANAMA TO THE EQUATOR 


The machines are hydroplanes of the Junker type, and 
since the beginning of the service they have made the six- 
hundred-mile trip from the coast twice each week without 
mishap. The fat man and the one with heavy baggage 
find it most expensive, as fares are based on the weight 
of the passengers and their belongings. The average 
fare is about one hundred and fifty dollars a person, and 
the rate for mail about thirty cents a letter. Because it 
is in competition with the river steamboats, which charge 
more for the journey up the river than for that down- 
stream, the air service charges more for the trip inland 
than for the passage down to the sea. The principal 
source of profit is in the transportation of currency. 
Money exchange rates in the cities of the interior always 
differ considerably from those of the ports, and formerly, 
when currency was sent from Bogota to the coast towns, 
so much time was required for its transportation that the 
banks frequently sustained great losses in their transac- 
tions. The Department of War has established a na- 
tional school of aviation to encourage the use of airplanes 
as a means of communication and transportation in 
Colombia. 

The flight to Bogota affords panoramic views of great 
beauty. Passengers look down upon a vast expanse of 
jungle plain, much of it thinly inhabited and still unex- 
plored by white men. It is shut in at the east and the 
west by the Cordilleras, the snow-capped peaks of which 
are obscured from sight at a lower level by the clouds. 
The Magdalena River looks like a shining ribbon, and the 
stern-wheeler boat forcing its way up the current is a 
mere speck on its surface. The elevation makes the 
temperature pleasantly cool and gives a perspective of 


13 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


mountains and valleys, icy peaks and steaming jungles, 
_ that brings a thrill to the most seasoned traveller. 

Bogota ranks so high as a centre of culture and educa- 
tion that it is sometimes called the ‘‘Athens of South 
America.” It has numerous universities and colleges, 
including one founded in 1654. Next to that of Quito its 
astronomical observatory is said to be the highest in the 
world. The city has an opera house, museums, a na- 
tional library, and polo, golf, and tennis clubs. There 
are fine stone buildings and many asphalt streets. In the 
shopping and business district one finds the typical 
crowds of the South American capital—well-dressed men, 
women fashionably gowned in Paris models or wearing 
black mantillas, and on every hand Indians and mestizos, 
or half-breeds, attired in all the colours of the rainbow. 

A city was founded on the site of Bogota by one of the 
several expeditions sent here by Spain in 1536 to conquer 
the Chibchas. Columbus had touched the Colombian 
coast in 1502 on his fourth and last voyage to the New 
World, and other Spaniards had carried on explorations, 
but comparatively little was known about the country. 
It was not until 1717 that it was made a viceroyalty of 
Spain, when it received the name of New Granada, and 
it was so called even after it proclaimed its independence 
from Spain in 1819. Although Colombia had a more or 
less stormy history for the remainder of the nineteenth 
century, it is now one of the only three countries in 
South America that have been without revolutions in the 
last twenty years. The other two are Argentina and 
Chile. 

The agricultural resources of Colombia are but little 
developed. Its pasture lands may make it one of the 


14 


ALAREARLLANAA 
AY ii 


ee SY \ 


_ More than a mile high in the Andes, Bogota has a cool, spring-like 
climate. It 1s one of only three South American capitals that have not 
witnessed a revolution in more than twenty years. 


The rivers of Colombia are the main highways of trade, on which 
light-draft steamers and native dugouts do most of the transport busi- 
ness of the republic. 


Passenger aeroplanes operated on regular schedules between Barren- 
quilla and the capital have cut the seven-day trip from the coast to 
Bogota, by way of the Magdalena River, to as many hours. 


FROM PANAMA TO THE EQUATOR 


future sources of our meat supply, for the Janos sloping 
down to the Amazon and the Orinoco rivers could feed 
millions of cattle. The Cauca Valley, if extensively 
cultivated, could supply the chocolate markets of the 
world. In the interior and along the Caribbean Sea are 
regions suitable for coffee growing. The United Fruit 
Company has immense banana plantations in northern 
Colombia and exports millions of bunches from Santa 
Marta. In that district it has eighty thousand acres of 
land suited for raising bananas, sixteen thousand acres or 
more being already under cultivation. In addition, the 
total area on which this fruit is raised by individual 
growers is almost as large. Colombia’s entire foreign 
trade in bananas is worth one million dollars a year. In 
the valleys and lowlands corn, sugar cane, rubber, and 
cotton also are grown. The Indians weave quantities of 
Panama hats from the straw of the toquilla palm, and 
ipecac is an important article of export. 

One of the little-known and most interesting products of 
Colombia is the tonka bean, from which most of the per- 
fume sold as sweet clover and new-mown hay is made. 
It grows on a tree from sixty to ninety feet high. The 
fruit of the tree is a pod that contains a single bean about 
an inch long and shaped like a large kidney bean. The 
odour of the tonka somewhat resembles that of vanilla 
and the bean is frequently used as an adulterant in making 
cheap vanilla extracts. Another use of the tonka is in 
the manufacture of tobacco. In bygone days every jar 
or box of snuff contained a tonka bean, and the flavour of 
some of our smoking tobacco is still enhanced in the 
same way. 

The chief crop of Colombia is coffee. Colombia leads 


15 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


the world in the quality of her coffee and is second only 
to Brazil in the quantity produced. It is much used to 
mix with the cheaper Brazilian grades. The industry 
has grown so that the annual production has tripled in the 
last ten years, and the value of that now sold abroad 
amounts to one half of Colombia’s entire export trade. 
Two hundred million pounds have been bought in one 
year by the United States, which during the World War 
became Colombia’s best customer. 

This republic is an undeveloped empire awaiting foreign 
capital to bring it to life. It will require, however, 
large investments and a willingness to await returns. 
Much of its wealth is in sparsely settled regions. The 
great need of the country is railroads, but it does not 
pay to build railroads until there is freight to be hauled, 
while production will not pay until goods can be delivered 
to a market at reasonable rates. 

Colombia is eight times as large as our New England 
states, but has only one ninth as much railway track. 
Its total railway mileage is so small that if all the lines 
were joined together they would reach little farther than 
from New York to Chicago. The fact that there are 
three different gauges adds to the difficulty of developing 
a national railway system. 

To-day the rivers of Colombia carry much of the freight. 
The Magdalena is navigable for almost a thousand miles, 
and through the Meta and other streams the interior is 
connected with the Orinoco and the Amazon, which 
reach the Atlantic through Venezuela and Brazil. The 
Sinu and the Atrato rivers have considerable traffic, and 
the Cauca, which flows into the Magdalena, gives outlet 
to the products of the lower part of the rich valley of that 

16 


i 


FROM PANAMA TO THE EQUATOR 


name. Before the Girardot-Bogota air service was es- 
tablished, everything was carried from the Magdalena to 
Bogota in ox carts and on the backs of men and mules, and 
in many parts of the country the mule is still the common 
carrier. 


17 


CHAPTER III 
A MODERN CAVE OF ALADDIN 


URING colonial times Colombia was the chief 
gold-producing country of all the Spanish posses- 
sions in the New World, and was second only to 
Peru and Mexico in its entire mineral output. 

It was here that Balboa first learned from the Indians of 
the treasures beyond the mountains that were afterward 
seized by Pizarro. Since then seven hundred million 
dollars’ worth of gold has been taken out of Colombia, and 
there are now more than eighteen thousand gold mines in 
the republic. The richest gold-bearing regions are in 
the Antioquia province and farther south in the ranges be- 
tween the Cauca and the Magdalena rivers. In that area, 
which covers thousands of square miles, gold is said to 
occur wherever there is gravel. In the mountains, where 
the rock has been laid bare, are many quartz veins that 
require only modern methods to extract the metal in 
quantity, and in the department of Narino, bordering on 
Ecuador, gold nuggets are found in the beds of the rivers 
flowing into the Pacific Ocean. 

Many of the mines of the Antioquia region have been 
worked continuously since before the arrival of the 
Spaniards. For centuries the natives have washed out 
the placer gold in wooden pans, or bateas. During the 
last decade or so English and American mining companies 

18 


Nearly all the emeralds in the world come from Colombia, where far 
centuries gangs of Indians have been getting out gem-bearing quartz 
from pits and terraces in the mountain sides. 


A mountainous country of countless rivers, Colombia has almost un- 
limited water-power. With the increase in mining operations and the 
development of the cities, some of the streams are being dammed and put 
to work. 


A MODERN CAVE OF ALADDIN 


have installed modern dredgers, dams, and placer-mining 
equipment costing millions of dollars. 

Nearly all the Indian tribes have more or less gold, 
which, like the rest of us, they try to keep. To make the 
Indians give up their hoards, sometimes the priests have 
set up images of saints supposed to cure diseases provided 
the supplicants made suitable offerings. If a man had a 
sore leg he moulded a leg of gold, the size of his little 
finger or larger, and presented it to the saint. If the 
afflicted member became well, the Indian was naturally 
convinced that the saint did the work and that the cure 
was worth what it cost. 

Another story I hear is about the sacred Lake of Gua- 
tavita. That lake lies far back in the interior and high up 
in the mountains two miles above sea level. It covers a 
deposit of mud thirty feet deep, which is believed to con- 
tain gold images, gold plates, and gold dust, thrown there 
by the Indians as offerings to their gods. The ceremony 
was performed by the chief, who first took a bath in gold 
dust. He was then put on a raft loaded with gold and 
emeralds and rowed out to the centre of the lake, where his 
subjects washed the gold dust from his body and threw the 
other offerings into the water. 

An enterprising Englishman conceived the idea of 
draining the lake to recover its hidden treasure. This 
was done after much labour and expense by driving a 
tunnel through a small hill on its shores. But when the 
water was drained off, the bottom of the lake was found 
to be a mass of liquid mud, making the work already 
done practically worthless. Nevertheless, long con- 
tinued dredging in the ooze brought to the surface many 
valuable evidences that the old Indian tradition was not 

19 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


without foundation. At Panama I saw golden curios 
~ from Lake Guatavita, and I know that for many a year 
golden images were dug up from its shores. 

Colombia has long ranked second in the world in the 
production of platinum. Indeed, during and after the 
World War, owing to the shutting off of supplies from 
Russia, this republic became the principal source of this 
metal, and a movement was started for mining it on a 
large scale. Practically the entire production, worth more 
than three million dollars annually, is exported to the 
United States. 

The largest deposits of platinum are found in the 
western part of the country, near the head waters of the 
Atrato and the San Juan rivers. The several foreign 
companies that are operating there have done much to 
improve the healthfulness of those regions. Modern 
and sanitary camps have been established, the jungle 
undergrowth has been cut away, and large areas of land 
have been drained to lessen the danger from mosqui- 
toes. 

Europe first knew of the existence of platinum in Colom- 
bia when the Spanish traveller, Don Antonio de Ulloa, 
upon his return from an expedition to the New World in 
1735, told of finding it there. A few years later several 
specimens of the ore were brought to England. They 
were found along the River Pinto, and were called ‘ Pla- 
tina de Pinto,” platina meaning “‘little silver.” 

Platinum is always found with gold, and for years 
after it was first discovered in 1737 it was thrown away in 
gold-mining operations. When its value was realized, 
frantic efforts were made to recover it. In the town of 
Quibdo the earth of the streets and yards has been washed 

20 


A MODERN CAVE OF ALADDIN: 


to get out the discarded metal, and one man extracted 
nearly thirty thousand dollars’ worth from around the 
foundations of his house. 

Petroleum exists in many parts of Colombia, but at 
present the most promising fields are in the Magdalena 
Valley, along the Atrato River, and in the Jlanos toward 
the Venezuelan frontier. The oil often is found on the 
surface, seeping out through cracks in the earth. In 
Antioquia is an oil geyser that spouts a stream of petro- 
leum twenty feet high. In parts of the tropical jungle 
are places where the natives collect crude oil, which they 
burn in earthenware lamps. The oil from the petroleum 
springs along the Sinu River is of sufficiently high grade 
to be used in an ordinary kerosene lamp. 

The existence of oil in Colombia was until recently a 
matter of interest only to geologists, but the increasing use 
of petroleum products has led the principal oil compa- 
nies of the world to acquire drilling rights on millions of 
acres of Colombian land. One of the largest American 
oil corporations has established a refinery at Barranca 
Bermeja on the Magdalena River, and is shipping kerosene 
and gasoline to various parts of the country. It has 
built large receiving stations along the river and plans to 
lay a pipe line to the coast as a means of getting the oil 
to foreign markets. The petroleum deposits will probably 
not be developed to their fullest extent, however, until a 
change is made in the present laws of the republic, which 
are now designed to protect national rights rather than to 
attract foreign capital. 

In addition to its untold wealth in precious metals, 
Colombia now produces practically all of the world’s 
supply of emeralds. From earliest recorded times these 

21 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


_ gems have been regarded as even more valuable than dia- 
monds. They were formerly believed to have super- 
natural powers and were supposed to drive away evil 
spirits from the owners. Some of the ancients thought 
that looking at an emerald benefited the eyesight. Other 
powers attributed to the gem were giving the wearer 
eloquence of speech, exposing falsehoods, and making 
snakes blind. 

The emerald mines of Colombia have been famous for 
many centuries. They belong to the State and are worked 
through concessions or leases. Individuals are prohibited 
from claiming any gems they may discover, unless they 
hold permits to work the deposits and pay a heavy royalty 
to the government. No stranger is allowed to approach 
the mines without permission from the Minister of Fi- 
nance, under whose jurisdiction they are placed, and 
labourers are carefully searched before being allowed to 
leave the property. 

The most important mines are those of Muzo, about 
ninety miles north of Bogota. They are located in a 
dense jungle of the Central Cordillera, miles from any 
settlement, although the remains of two cathedrals and 
several other buildings indicate that there was once a 
large city there. The mines are protected by a dozen 
guard houses on hills overlooking the workings. The 
precious stones are found in the bow] of an extinct volcano. 
They are dug out by Indians, who break up the rock 
along the terraced hillsides, uncovering the trail of green 
quartz containing the crystals. This quartz is taken out 
with great care, and after the emeralds are removed the 
débris falls into a sluiceway where it is washed off by 
water dropping from the higher levels of the mine. After 

22 


_—_— OO, EEE ee 


With only about one thousand miles of railroads, 
Colombia is carried mostly on muleback, over roads 
little improved since the days of the Spaniards. 


overland freight in 
that have been but 


= emake 


The citizen of Guayaquil, like nearly all Latin Americans, has a strain 
of sporting blood in his veins and dearly loves a horse race. In some 
cities racing is becoming more popular than the bull-fight. 


A MODERN CAVE OF ALADDIN 


the water is drained away the gravelly sediment is again 
searched for gems. 

The Duke of Devonshire, the most valuable emerald 
known, was found in such gravel. This stone was about 
two inches long, two inches thick, and weighed a little more 
than a half pound. Another famous gem, the Hope emerald, 
also came from Colombia. Its weight was six ounces. 
There is a tradition that Cortes got from the Aztecs an 
emerald worth forty thousand ducats, and that another the 
size of an ostrich egg came from Peru, where the Indians 
worshipped it as a goddess. 

The Colombian mines were first worked by the Indians 
before the arrival of white men in South America. After 
the conquest by the Spaniards, the natives were driven 
into tunnels in the hillsides and forced to dig for emeralds. 
On account of the underground dampness and cold, they 
usually died within a few months or a year. Food was 
thrown to them as long as they produced emeralds, but if 
they failed to find any gems they were allowed to die of 
starvation. 

Later, many of the mines were abandoned and remained 
hidden in the jungle for more than a hundred years. They 
were rediscovered near the end of the nineteenth century. 
Until a few years ago the skeletons of the victims of the 
cruel treatment of the Spanish conquerors were still being 
dug up in the new workings. To-day the Colombian 
government gives the miners every reasonable comfort, 
and if it were not for the unhealthful climate they would 
be well off. 

The Muzo group of mines has yielded eight hundred 
thousand carats of emeralds in a year, of which about one 
third are first class, more than one half second class, 


23 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


and the remainder of lower grades. Recently the output 
of many rich mines has been kept down to prevent over- 
production and a glutting of the market. 

Coal exists in almost every part of Colombia, copper is 
found in large quantities, and there are vast untouched 
deposits of iron, tin, lead, and nickel. Under Spanish 
rule the mines were exploited by slave labour, and when 
the despotic power passed away production was limited to 
the supply of domestic needs. It is only within recent 
years that modern progress has roused Colombia, like a 
sleeping princess, to arise and gather up her jewels. 


24 


CHAPTER IV 
GUAYAQUIL 


HE city of Guayaquil! How shall | describe it? 

It is one of the strangest places in the world. The 

chief gateway to the republic of Ecuador, it lies 

seventy miles up the wide Guayas River, and is 
almost on the Equator. It is frowned upon by the snowy 
peaks of Chimborazo and Cotopaxi, the latter the highest 
active volcano in the world, and it is bathed in the moist, 
miasmatic air of the tropics. Seen from the river, it 
reminds one of Venice along the Grand Canal; upon the 
wharves the scenes make one think of Naples; while its 
business sections include a maze of bazaars like those of 
Cairo, Calcutta, or Bombay, as well as broad streets lined 
with the plate-glass windows of modern stores. 

The people are of many types. Well-dressed men and 
women pass to and fro, workmen labour at their trades in 
the open, and porters carry bales and bags on their backs. 
Everywhere we see piles of cacao beans drying in the 
sun, stirred now and then by the feet of half-grown 
youngsters. | 

When I was here before, Guayaquil had hundreds of 
donkeys. I saw one with a load of boards strapped to its 
sides so that it looked as though it were walking between 
walls of pine planks, and another with panniers containing 
loaves of bread slung across its back. To-day on those 
streets automobiles and motor trucks are speeding by. 


25 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


Their use has increased rapidly since the cobblestones have 
been removed and the streets paved with asphalt. 

Guayaquil to-day is in every respect a well-ordered city, 
and has a good police force. Ona former visit I was kept 
awake during my first few nights here by the policemen 
shouting that they were awake. Every man on watch 
was required by regulation to cry out or whistle at in- 
intervals of a quarter of an hour. The cry was: “El 
sentinel es alerto,’ and the whistle was a combination 
more wonderful than anything except the noise of the 
Guayaquil frogs, which screamed out “‘hi-hi-hi’ all night 
long. One of the policemen almost dropped his gun 
on my foot one day as | attempted to pass behind him. 
] afterward learned that a person was supposed to pass in 
front of a policeman and not between him and the wall. 
Another regulation in force during times of revolution was 
that all persons out after eleven o’clock in the evening 
had to be prepared to give an account of themselves. 
The challenge was: ‘‘ Who goes there?” and if your answers 
did not satisfy the police you were taken to jail. 

In coming to Guayaquil, I entered the estuary of the 
Guayas River just opposite the island of Puna, on which 
Pizarro landed on his way south to conquer Peru. With 
most of his men he had landed farther north and pro- 
ceeded southward by overland marches, his vessels follow- 
ing him just off the coast. Many of his soldiers were 
landed on the island by means of the native rafts of balsa 
wood. The Indians of Puna at first accorded the Span- 
iards every hospitality, but later hostilities broke out, 
and hundreds of men were slaughtered. Finally, with the 
arrival of two more vessels carrying reinforcements of men 
and horses, Pizarro left the island and landed on the 

26 


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GUAYAQUIL 


mainland again at the port of Tumbez near the present 
boundary between Peru and Ecuador. 

Some of the largest vessels anchor here, discharging their 
passengers and cargoes in lighters. Our steamer drew 
less than twenty-two feet of water and so we could go on 
up the river. Skirting the island, we came into the Gulf 
of Guayaquil, which forms the mouth of the river. The 
estuary is six miles wide at this point, and as we steamed 
along we seemed to be passing through an inland sea. 
The water was of the colour and the thickness of yellow 
pea soup. It was spotted with patches of green—great 
trees and other débris from the Andes being carried down 
to the sea. 

At Guayaquil the river is wider than the Mississippi ac 
St. Louis. It furnishes a safe harbour and is usually filled 
with craft of all kinds, from ocean-going steamers to the 
dugouts, rafts, and cargo boats used by the Indians. 
The wharves are crowded with men and women who have 
brought fruit and other things to sell. Among their 
wares are papayas, or melons that grow on trees. In size 
and in their rich yellow meat they seem much like our 
muskmelons. The thin-skinned, juicy Ecuadorian oranges 
are as sweet as any I| have ever tasted, and the pineapples 
from the hot coast lands sometimes weigh as much as 
twenty-five pounds. | 

Many of the Indians have for sale Panama hats, hun- 
dreds of thousands of which are woven by hand each 
year by the natives. The quality and style vary accord- 
ing to the locality from which they come, but even the 
very best are sold at much lower prices than in the United 
States. 

The Guayas is to South America what the Columbia is 


27 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


to North America. It is the largest river on the western 
side of the continent, and the outlet of the great network 
of streams that flow down from the Andes. During the 
rainy season from December to May, they convert much 
of the country into a vast lake. Then boats like those on 
the Ohio or the Mississippi can travel two hundred and 
fifty miles farther inland from here. They make the 
rounds of the villages and the plantations, and bring out 
cacao, ivory, nuts, sugar, coffee, and rubber. Nine tenths 
of all the foreign commerce of Ecuador passes through 
Guayaquil, and since the improvement of the port its 
traffic is steadily increasing. The opening of the Panama 
Canal brought the city within only eight days of New 
York and stimulated trade with the United States. We 
now furnish more than half the imports of Ecuador, and 
take three fourths of its exports. We supply most of its 
cotton goods, and compete with Great Britain in the sale 
of machinery and woollens. We lead in selling it boots 
and shoes, and also lard, wheat, flour, and coal. 

When I first visited Guayaquil it was a town of forty 
thousand inhabitants. It has now one hundred thousand 
people or more, and with its growth has acquired electric 
lighting and street-railway systems. It hasa university, a 
theatre, and several moving-picture houses. Indeed, our 
“movies” are very popular here, and though most of the 
streets are deserted at night, there are always crowds in 
the neighbourhood of a ‘“‘movie’”’ theatre. The streets 
of Guayaquil have been widened and many modern build- 
ings erected. Some of them are of two or three stories, 
covered with stucco, and painted all the colours of the 
rainbow. Many of the older buildings have balconies that 
extend out over the street, and not a few have galleries 

28 


GUAYAQUIL 


along the second story. The balconies are walled with 
windows through the half-closed shutters of which there 
may be dark-eyed beauties looking down upon us as we 
pass by. 

The city has several banks, sugar mills, rice factories, 
and coffee hullers. There are large stores filled with fine 
goods, and great warehouses stacked high with bags of 
cacao, coffee, and sugar awaiting shipment. Cables 
connect Guayaquil with all parts of the world. It has 
telephone service with long-distance connections with 
Quito, almost three hundred miles away in the Andes. 
One of Guayaquil’s newspapers, El Telégrafo, inaugurated 
an airplane service to Quito mainly for the quick delivery 
of newspapers to the capital city. A military aviation 
school, with Italian pilots as instructors, has been es- 
tablished in the province of Guayas. A French syndicate 
has a thirty-year concession for the operation of the tele- 
phone, the telegraph, and the radio systems of Ecuador. 
The government pays the company an annual subsidy of 
at least two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and 
shares in any profits that may be made. 

The eradication of yellow fever, malaria, and other con- 
tagious diseases in Guayaquil was one of the great achieve- 
ments of the twentieth century in the field of sanitation. 
This city long had a death rate higher than that of any 
other place in the world, and was known all over the 
globe as “‘the pest hole of the Pacific.” Because of the 
almost continual presence of yellow fever, malaria, and 
even the bubonic plague, this port was dreaded by ship- 
ping men, and was regarded as a menace to the success of 
the Panama Canal. During the rainy season the town 
used to be flooded with stagnant water, which the authori- 


29 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


ties were so afraid of stirring up that it was against the 
law to drive a cart or carriage through the streets without 
a special permit from the police. Winter was the most 
dangerous season of Guayaquil—the season of yellow 
fever and malaria—when death hovered over the town 
and the doctors made enough money to pay for summer 
vacations in Europe. The water lay all about in pools 
upon which floated a thick coat of green slime. In 
summer, the unpaved streets were filled with dust, and 
the donkeys wore pantalets to protect them from the bites 
of gadflies and mosquitoes. 

In the great yellow fever epidemic at Panama in °1905 
it was thought that the infection came from Guayaquil, 
although the Ecuadorians say this isnot true. The spread 
of the disease cost the lives of some of the officials in 
charge of building the Canal. I was at Panama several 
weeks during the height of the epidemic, and frequently, 
after having had dinner with a man, I would hear a few 
days later that he had been stricken, and perhaps a week 
later that he was dead. 

Another danger at Guayaquil was from malaria, which, 
you will remember, caused so many deaths on the Isthmus 
at the time of the building of the Panama railroad. This 
the Ecuadorians call perniciosa, and it is known to the 
Panamans as Chagres fever. I once experienced a severe 
attack of it in this part of the world. Guayaquil was 
avoided by ships also because of the bubonic plague, which 
first broke out here in 1908. The moment a traveller 
landed he was grabbed by the doctor and a plague serum 
injected into his arm. He then was given a certificate 
showing that he had been vaccinated, and he had to pro- 
duce this before he was allowed to go into the interior. 


30 


bs at ee a 


ly ee ee: A 


ven, 


In the older portions of Guayaquil many houses have walls of split 
bamboo, with removable sections. The more modern buildings are 
made of wood and covered with plaster in imitation of stone. 


Products of Ecuador’s forests and farms are rafted down 
tributary to the Guayas, which affords the chief outlet for the 


of the country. 


the rivers 
commerce 


anneal 


GUAYAQUIL 


The towns swarmed with rats, the fleas from which 
carried the plague. Most of the houses stood close to the 
ground and had wooden floors under which the rats could 
burrow. 

During my travels in China and India I have encoun- 
tered many epidemics of bubonic plague. I visited Hong- 
kong and Canton when the people were dying at the rate 
of so many hundreds a day that sixty thousand coffins 
had to be furnished by charitable associations to bury the 
dead. The plague in China was spread by rat fleas, and 
it raged with devastating fury in the densely built warrens 
of the Chinese at Hongkong. It was this plague that 
broke out in Europe again and again in the years between 
the sixth and the eighteenth centuries, and is said to have 
caused more deaths than any other epidemic that has 
populated the graveyards of man. This also was the pest 
that Daniel DeFoe described in his story of the great black 
plague in London of 1665 and 1666. The terrible infection 
is believed to have been spread over the world from China. 

The work of cleaning up Guayaquil was begun under 
the direction of General William C. Gorgas, the United 
States Army surgeon who made Havana and the Canal 
Zone safe for Americans. It was brought to a successful 
completion in codperation with the Rockefeller Founda- 
tion. Millions of dollars were spent, and the city was 
almost rebuilt. The docks and wharves, where countless 
rats lived, were torn down and new ones constructed, and 
drains and sewers were laid to carry away the stagnant 
pools, the breeding places of the Anopheles, or malaria 
mosquito. A water system was installed, and water is 
now piped from the mountains, fifty-three miles away, to 
a reservoir on one of the hills north of the city. 


31 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


The Stegomyia, or yellow-fever mosquito, unlike the 
Anopheles, does not like dirty water, but is fond of rain 
barrels. Experiments showed that certain kinds of fish 
would eat the larve of this mosquito, and a law was passed 
requiring that at least one fish be kept in every rain barrel 
or other small water container. This regulation, together 
with the screening or sealing of the larger tanks, proved 
an effective means of eliminating the yellow-fever mosquito 
and thereby putting an end to the epidemics. 

In the meantime, the scientists codperating with the 
Ecuadorian government were successful in isolating the 
fever germ and producing a vaccine to fight the disease. 
This vaccine, administered before the third day after a 
person had been bitten by a yellow-fever mosquito, re- 
duced the mortality from fifty-six to thirteen per cent., 
while people who had been twice vaccinated were entirely 
immune from contagion. 

But before we leave Guayaquil let me tell you some- 
thing about the republic of Ecuador. Its name means 
“Equator,” and this land, called after the hot girdle en- 
circling the waist of Mother Earth, lies wholly in the 
tropics. It forms a triangle on the west coast of South 
America, wedged between Colombia, Brazil, and Peru. 
Its shape is somewhat like that of a fan, with its handle in 
northern Brazil and its scalloped rim washed by the Pacific 
Ocean. 

Ecuador is one of the least known of all the South 
American republics. Parts of it have never been surveyed, 
and estimates of its area vary from the size of California 
to that of Texas. The best authorities place it at one 
hundred and sixteen thousand square miles, which is about 
equal to Ohio, Virginia, and Indiana combined. Ecuador 


32 


GUAYAQUIL 


and her neighbours have never been able to agree as to her 
boundaries, and there are maps showing six different 
frontiers. 

The country is divided naturally into three distinct 
zones. Along the Pacific is the tropical coast region, next 
is the land of mountains and plateaus known as the Mon- 
tafia, and east of the Andes are the vast stretches of al- 
most unexplored territory called the Oriente. The coast 
lands are low, and tropical vegetation extends for about 
eighty miles back from the ocean to the foot-hills of the 
Andes. The mountains cross the country from north to 
south in two mighty ranges, upholding between them a 
series of beautiful valleys in which nine tenths of the people 
live. These valleys have a greater elevation above sea 
level than Mexico City and a climate like that of New 
York or Ohio in June. They are walled by some of the 
greatest volcanoes in the world. There are twenty-one 
volcanic peaks from three to four miles in height, and 
seventeen others more than two miles high. Ten of them 
are more or less active, and at times the air here at Guaya- 
quil is filled with ashes from their eruptions. To with- 
stand the occasional earthquakes, many of the houses are 
small and built of wooden timbers so joined together that 
they can sway with the trembling of the earth and not 
give way. | 

The tropical wilderness of the Oriente extends to the 
tributaries of the Amazon, and some of Ecuador’s streams 
flow into that mighty river. A railway from the plateau 
to one of the rivers emptying into the Amazon is planned. 
Such a line would open up a rich mining region and lands 
suitable for growing sugar cane, cacao, cotton, and coffee. 

As in Colombia, the minerals of Ecuador have never 


33 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


been exploited to any extent. The Zaruma gold mines 
are important, and in Canar are large silver deposits. 
The highlands are known to be rich in coal, copper, iron, 
lead, and platinum, while sulphur exists on the slopes of 
Mount Chimborazo and in the Galapagos Islands. Salt 
is found in several provinces and mined as a government 
monopoly, and in recent years petroleum has been pro- 
duced in increasing quantities in the oil fields of Santa 
Elena. 


34 


i ll 


_After the cacao bean is harvested it must be dried in the sun before 
being sent to the chocolate mills of the world. One fourth of the Ecuador 
crop, or about twenty-five million pounds, goes to the United States, 


With machetes and knives fastened to long poles, the cacao harvest- 
ers gather the beans from which our chocolate and cocoa are made, 
This crop furnishes Ecuador’s chief export commodity. 


CHAPTER V 
A LAND OF CACAO 


HAVE just returned from a visit to a town where 

to-day the streets are crossed by bridges and the house- 

wives go to market in canoes. I started from Guaya- 

quil in an American-built steamer for the river port of 
Bodegas, forty miles away at the foot of the Andes. Soon 
after leaving Guayaquil we passed the mouth of the Daule 
River and a few hours later came into the Bodegas River, 
the headstream of the Guayas. We sailed up that river 
all night and early in the morning came to anchor among 
the houses of Bodegas, which seem to float upon the 
water. , 

For most of the year Bodegas is the head of navigation 
of the Guayas, but now, during the rainy season, small 
river boats can go two hundred miles farther inland. The 
town has a population of five thousand, and is an impor- 
tant transhipping point between Guayaquil and the in- 
terior. It is located in a region rich in cacao, sugar cane, 
rice, and minerals. 

When we arrived at Bodegas | was carried ashore on the 
shoulders of a half-naked Indian, and crossed from street 
to street on bridges of logs. In the lower parts of the 
town the houses are built on stilts, and in dry seasons 
the ground underneath is occupied by chickens, donkeys, 
and cattle. At the time of the floods these animals are 


35 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


kept in the houses with the people or upon rafts moored to 
the piles and rising and falling with the water. 

Hundreds of the houses can be reached only in canoes, 
and the children go to school in boats. The poorer Indian 
homes consist of little more than one room about six feet 
square, usually ten feet above the ground, and reached by a 
ladder outside. The women do their cooking in clay pots 
over a charcoal fire built in a box filled with earth. The 
chief food is the potato-like tuber known as the yucca, and 
plantains or large bananas. Much rice is eaten; it is 
cooked with lard, most of which is imported from the 
United States. 7 

There is no privacy whatever in these homes. Men 
and women, boys and girls, and wives and maidens all herd 
together, sleeping in the same clothes they wear during 
the day, and lying indiscriminately on the floor or in the 
hammocks. These hammocks, made of woven fibres, are 
not only the common beds of many of the Indians of 
Ecuador, but are also widely used in neighbouring coun- 
tries. The usual bathroom is a floating shed with holes 
in its floor, through which one may dip himself into the 
river, with the possibility of losing a leg by the nip of an 
alligator. 

The business section of Bodegas is on a strip of elevated 
land, so that the shops are free from water. Here the 
buildings are of wood, the larger ones two stories high, 
with cave-like stores on the ground floor and living 
quarters above. Pavements and other modern improve- 
ments are unknown, and there are neither gutters nor 
sewers. There is not a chimney in the town. Neither 
have I seen any glass windows, the second-floor rooms 
being ventilated by latticework around the ceiling. The 

36 


a meee a 


A LAND OF CACAO 


front walls of the lower stories are movable, and are 
thrown back in the daytime so that, as in the houses of 
Japan, one can see all that goes on within. 

I was at a loss to make myself understood in Bodegas, 
as my Spanish was lame. At last I learned that an 
American carpenter and undertaker named Klein lived 
there. I found him among his coffins. He left his work 
and together we went to visit one of the biggest planta- 
tions in Ecuador, the owner of which has great herds 
of cattle and horses and sells hundreds of thousands 
of pounds of cacao beans every year. Most of the 
country-side was under water, so we went to the plantation 
in a dugout about thirty feet long and about three feet 
wide. It was poled and sculled by two lusty, brown- 
skinned gondoliers, one of whom stood at each end. Mr. 
Klein sat in the bottom and I was given a place beside 
him and told to hold myself steady. 

We were pushed along through the wide streets of 
water lined with floating huts, and on into the tropical 
forest. We glided among the treetops, now grazing a 
great black alligator and now chattered at by monkeys 
that made faces at us as they scampered away. The 
woods were full of strange birds which fluttered about 
with shrill cries as we passed. We had a shot at one, a 
beautiful creature the size of a pigeon, with a blood-red 
bill, long legs of golden yellow, and feathers of royal 
purple. I fired also at an alligator but the canoe rocked 
as I stood up, and the monster dived down unharmed. 
Mr. Klein told me that on the highlands he often bagged a 
deer and sometimes a jaguar or a wild hog, and that among 
the mountains were to be found all kinds of beautiful 
humming birds in great numbers. 

37 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


The trip was wonderfully beautiful. Under us was 
twelve feet of water, covering what a few weeks before 
had been dry land. The partly submerged trees formed 
a thick arbour of shade as we wound in and out among 
them. Now we moved along a narrow canal of green, 
and now out into a great foliage-walled chamber, where 
every branch was loaded with orchids—rare blooms 
that would be worth thousands of dollars in New York. 
There were insects everywhere, bugs and ants of every 
kind falling upon us as we floated onward. My com- 
panion told me that once a boa-constrictor dropped into 
his boat from the branches of a tree overhead. 

In this dense tropical vegetation were rubber trees, 
trees loaded with alligator pears, and here and there a tall 
palm lifting its great head high over the forest. The 
silence was oppressive, the soft air heavy, and the lapping 
of the water against the sides of the canoe invited one to 
sleep. Occasionally a dugout containing an Indian family 
passed us, or a great cargo boat loaded with cacao moved 
by on its way to the market. 

Nearly all the country over which we travelled was the 
property of the planter we were to visit, and most of it 
was flooded. Even the grazing lands of the plantation 
were under water, but the herds had been taken to the 
highlands at the foot of the Andes. We came upon the 
planter’s house in a wide waste of waters, with the tops 
of fence posts sticking up above the surface. We paddled 
over the fences, passing tenant houses of bamboo thatched 
with palm leaves and built upon stilts. Under each 
house was a platform, just clear of the water, on which 
the family chickens and pigs lived within six inches of 
drowning. We passed a floating butcher-shop, went by 


38 


On the small farms lying in the narrow valleys below Quito, or clinging 
to the steep mountain sides, the fruits and vegetables of both the tem- 
perate and tropical zones are grown, for the climate is hot or cool 
according to altitude. 


The world’s loftiest active volcano is Cotopaxi, nearly four miles high 
Sometimes its heat, by melting the snow on the sides of the peak, causes 
disastrous floods in the lowlands. 


Because of its lightness, the wood of the balsa tree has become a com- 
petitor of cork. The Ecuadorians use the logs to make rafts, which they 
operate not only on the river but along the sea coast. 


A LAND OF CACAO 


a great barn on piles, made our way through a number of 
cacao boats, and sailed over the front gate up to the 
second-floor level of a large white three-story building sur- 
rounded by wide verandas. 

The owner met us at the door. He ordered our boat 
tied to the veranda and invited us to come in and make 
ourselves at home. A moment later food and wine were 
placed before us. The daughters of the house were called 
in, and we drank to the better relations of our countries 
and continents. Later a servant was sent after fresh 
coconuts. We drained their sweet milk from the shell 
and then went out in canoes to look over the property. 

From what I have learned in talking with the cacao 
exporters in Guayaquil, together with what I saw with my 
own eyes on that inundated plantation, I can tell you the 
whole story of the product without which we could not 
have chocolate candies to eat or cocoa to drink. 

Until I came here I had an idea that the beans from 
which chocolate is made grew on bushes, and I was sur- 
prised to learn that they come from an evergreen tree that 
reaches a height of twenty or thirty feet, although it is 
usually kept lower by trimming. Its large glossy leaves 
are chiefly on the ends of the branches, but sometimes 
on the trunk. The pinkish-white blossoms and. the 
short-stemmed fruit grow on the trunk and on the main 
branches. When mature the fruit is of the shape of a 
squash, usually six or eight inches long and six inches 
thick, and yellow or reddish in colour. It has a thick, 
hard, warty shell, inside which are light-brown seeds, or 
beans, which form the cacao of commerce. The beans 
are about as big as almonds and a little thicker. Each 
has a thin outer coating inside which is a dark-brown 


39 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


kernel. It is from the kernel that our chocolate is made. 
There are twenty or thirty and sometimes forty seeds in 
one fruit. | 

In raising cacao the seeds are planted in nurseries, and 
after the trees are a foot or more high they are trans- 
planted, about two hundred and fifty being set out to the 
acre. At first they are shaded by banana plants to keep 
off the hot rays of the sun. The ground is thoroughly 
cultivated until the trees are five years old, when they 
begin to bear fruit. They continue to bear for twenty or 
thirty years. The average yield for a tree is about three 
pounds of beans a year, although some trees produce more. 
Five or six hundred pounds to the acre is considered a good 
crop. 

The fruit is harvested by being cut from the trees with 
sharp knives fastened to long poles so as to reach high 
above the ground. Later the seeds are taken out, dried 
in the sun, and shipped to the market. Cacao is the 
principal agricultural product of Ecuador, and constitutes 
eighty per cent. of its export trade. This country is out- 
ranked only by Brazil and the Gold Coast of Africa in 
the amount of cacao it produces every year. The total 
area of its cacao plantations is more than three hundred 
thousand acres, and the annual crop amounts to almost a 
hundred million pounds. Practically all of it is exported 
and one fourth goes to the United States. 

Some years ago a number of leading cacao growers and 
business men here founded the Agricultural Association of 
Ecuador, a body similar to our rice and cotton growers’ 
organizations in the United States. The Association is 
authorized by the government to collect a tax of fifty 
cents gold on every one hundred pounds of cacao exported. 


40 


A LAND OF CACAO 


This money is applied to a fund that is used to better work- 
ing conditions, for experiments to improve the quality 
and quantity of the crop, and to suppress speculation and 
monopolies. Membership in the organization assures 
the planters a fair profit on their crops, for when the 
market price of cacao falls to a point that the Association 
considers too low, it buys the crop and stores it until the 
price has risen. 

Smaller organizations have been formed in the various 
provinces to modernize planting and harvesting methods 
and to secure a higher quality in other crops besides cacao. 
Better seeds have been introduced into the country for 
coffee, rice, cotton, and peanuts, and selected live stock 
for breeding purposes is being imported. 

Probably the largest cacao plantation in Ecuador is the 
Caamafio Tenguel Estate, sixty miles from Guayaquil. 
It is owned by a British syndicate, and produces about 
one fifteenth of the total cacao output of the republic. 
It really is made up of eight separate plantations, covering 
altogether a half million acres. Besides its three and a 
half million cacao trees, the estate raises also coffee, sugar, 
bananas, and rubber, and has more than a thousand head 
of cattle. It supports the progressive little town of 
Tenguel, which has modern homes for the employees, a 
church, a school house, a club, and a physician to look 
after the health of the workers and their families. It has 
its own fire brigade, waterworks, electric light plant, and a 
private telephone system connecting all parts of the 
several plantations. 

It was some four hundred years ago that chocolate was 
first drunk in Europe, where it was introduced by Cortes 
soon after his conquest of Mexico in 1519. He and his 


41 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT | 


band of conquistadors found cacao beans being used as 
money in Mexico. Ten beans was the price of a rabbit, 
while a fairly good slave might be had for a hundred. No 
less than two thousand jars of chocolate were made every 
day for the Emperor Montezuma and his court. The 
monarch’s drink was flavoured with vanilla and chilis and 
beaten into a froth. He drank it from a golden goblet 
and stirred it with a tortoise-shell spoon. Pizarro found 
the Incas enjoying the same drink in Peru. 

The Spaniards readily took to the new beverage, and 
from Spain chocolate drinking quickly spread to France, 
Germany, and Italy. By 1665 it had become a feature 
of the court life of the “Merry Monarch,” Charles II, 
of England. Only the wealthy could have indulged in 
it then, for a pound cost the equivalent of five dollars in 
our money. Cardinal Richelieu, the great prime minister 
of Louis XIII, found that it marvellously restored his 
vitality. The Spanish princess, Maria Theresa, was said 
by one historian of her time to have but two passions: 
her husband, Louis XIV, and chocolate. Its stock went 
down, though, when Madame de Coétlogon, one of the 
ladies of the court, had a child ‘‘as black as the devil’ 
because of the quantities of chocolate she had drunk. And 
in 1673 the English brewers and grain growers demanded 
the prohibition of chocolate along with rum, brandy, and 
tea, because the popularity of these drinks cut down the 
consumption of drinks brewed from good old British 
barley. The prohibitionists were unsuccessful, however, 
and England and the rest of Europe continued to sip its 
chocolate. 

While cacao is the chief source of income of Ecuador, 
coffee and rubber are also important in its trade with the 


42 


A LAND OF CACAO 


rest of the world. The coffee grown in this country is 
especially popular in Europe, where some four million 
pounds of it are consumed every year. As to rubber, it is 
now being produced here under plantation methods, and 
more than a million trees have been set out. With in- 
tensive and scientific cultivation, there is no reason why 
Ecuador should not compete with Malaysia as a source 
of rubber. 

Another great export of Ecuador is ivory nuts, which 
come from a low palm tree known as the tagua. The fruit 
is as large as a man’s head, and looks somewhat like a 
huge chestnut bur. The bur contains from sixty to ninety 
nuts, each the size of a baby’s fist. It is from these nuts 
that we get our vegetable ivory, which in recent years has 
become an important commodity. In the green state the 
nuts are soft and jelly-like inside, but when ripe they are 
as hard as bone throughout. They can be dyed any 
colour, and take a high polish. 

The ivory palm grows wild in the forests and the natives 
travel through the woods to gather the nuts. There are 
organized bands of taguaros, or ivory-nut gatherers, who 
camp out in the swampy forests and bring the product in 
boats to Guayaquil. The boats are usually rafts made 
by the Indians of balsa wood, which is so light that two 
men can carry a twenty-foot log two or three feet thick. 
The nuts are carried to the rafts in rude baskets and then 
floated down the rivers. Often they are delivered to an 
agent who makes a business of furnishing outfits to 
taguaros in return for most of their crops. 

The United States buys twenty million pounds of ivory 
nuts a year and turns them into buttons, paper knives, and 
everything that can be made from vegetable ivory. 


43 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


When the nuts come to the factory they look like small 
potatoes. They are dried and the hard shells removed. 
Next they are sawed into thin pieces, the slices being taken 
off the sides until only the very centre, which is useless, 
is left. As the slices of ivory are further dried, their bluish 
white colour changes to a creamy hue, and they are ready 
to be made into finished products. 

Most of the buttons we use are from these palm nuts, 
so that it may be truly said that Ecuador fastens together 
the garments of America. 


CHAPTER VI 
THE CAPITAL OF ECUADOR 


INE tenths of the inhabitants of Ecuador live in 
the clouds. There are a dozen towns twice as high 
as Denver, and Quito is one of the highest capital 
cities in the world. It is more than a half mile 

higher than Mexico City, and a thousand feet nearer the 
sky than the hospice of St. Bernard in the Alps, the 
highest point in Europe where men live all the year round. 
It is situated in a valley between two ranges of the Andes, 
on the very roof of South America, and only about fifteen 
miles from the Equator. 

In 1897, when I made my first trip to Ecuador, one 
could cross the Andes to Quito only on mules. The 
round trip cost more than one hundred dollars, with an 
additional charge for every pound of baggage. All goods 
had to be carried on the backs of mules or men. At one 
point I saw twenty-four Indians starting for Quito bearing 
on their heads a piano in a great box. The cost of trans- 
portation was almost equal to the original price of the 
piano, and the freight on a small boiler shipped to Quito 
was one hundred dollars. 

There were then almost no roads over the mountains. 
Men and mules toiled along narrow trails, forded rushing 
streams, and often sank deep in mud. The ascents were 
so steep in places that all one could do was to put his arms 
around the neck of his mount and hold on for dear life. 


45 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


Going down hill the mules sat on their haunches and slid. 
As the Ecuadorians say, their “‘roads are for birds, not 
men.’ Now there is a railroad from Guayaquil that 
carries one comfortably and quickly over this region 
of former discomfort, and Quito is readily accessible at all 
times of the year. 

Come with me for a journey over the route of the 
Guayaquil and Quito Railroad. We cross the Guayas 
River on a ferry early in the morning and by seven o’clock 
have left the terminal at Duran and are moving through 
the tropical lowlands. There are pastures containing 
herds of fat cattle, cacao groves loaded with the squash- 
like fruit hanging close to the trunks and branches, and 
many little villages with houses on piles so that the first 
floors have to be reached by ladders. These houses are 
thatched with broad white leaves tied to a framework of 
bamboo. The floors are of cane, and the cracks are so 
many that the women do not need to sweep, for the dirt 
falls through to the ground or the water. We pass 
banana plantations, fields of sugar cane, and modern sugar 
mills, go through forests loaded with orchids, and finally 
stop at Bucay, which ts fifty-seven miles from Guayaquil. 
Our wood-burning locomotive is now changed for one 
built in Philadelphia that uses oil fuel, for here the Andes 
begin to rise steeply before us. With the further develop- 
ment of the oil fields of Ecuador, it is expected that none 
but oil-burning locomotives will eventually be used. 

The speed of the train so far has been not quite twelve 
miles an hour, and we have risen to an altitude of less than 
one thousand feet. In the next three hours we rise three 
thousand feet more to Huigra, where the Americans in 
charge of the railway have their homes and offices. It is 


46 


Construction of the Guayaquil and Quito Railroad was a triumph of 
American engineering skill. The “Devil’s Nose,” on the most difficult 
part of the route, has three levels of track, one above the other. 


| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
; 
é 


As the capital of a country intensely devoted to the Catholic faith, 
Quito has many fine churches, of which that of the Jesuits Is considered 
the most beautiful in design and decoration. 


THE CAPITAL OF ECUADOR 


Proposed to build a branch line from here to Cuenca, the 
third city of Ecuador. From Huigra we go on up, up, 
sighting Chimborazo, higher than our own Mount 
McKinley in Alaska, and in the early evening reach Rio- 
bamba. Here we spend the night, as travelling by dark- 
ness is still considered dangerous in Ecuador. Our climb 
is resumed the next morning, and during the day we go 
over the pass at Urbina, the highest station on the road, 
nearly twelve thousand feet above the sea. We reach 
Quito late in the afternoon, at the end of a two-day journey 
covering two hundred and eighty-six miles. 

The building of the Guayaquil and Quito Railroad, like 
most of the trans-Andean roads of South America, pre- 
sented almost insurmountable difficulties. Atone place on 
the route, known as the “‘Devil’s Nose,” the track proceeds 
from one switchback to another over ground dangerous in 
the extreme. The successful completion of the road is a 
monument to the engineering skill and determination of 
Archer Harman, the Virginian who conceived and built it. 
A few years ago his nephew, bearing the same name, be- 
came the president and general manager of the line. 

Quito is walled in by some of the highest peaks of the 
Andes. Just back of it is the active volcano, Pichincha, 
its snow-capped peak so near the city that it furnishes 
the ice for making Quito’s ice-cream. Pichincha has a 
crater a half mile deep and a mile wide at the bottom. 
It is a mile higher than Mount Etna; and its eruptions, 
which occur at long intervals, are such stupendous blasts 
from the fiery bowels of the earth that Mount Vesuvius 
seems but a portable furnace in comparison. A fair road 
has been built to its summit, from which twenty other 
volcanoes are visible. 


47 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


Let us hire an automobile and ride up Pichincha. At 
the top we see all Quito spread out in the valley beneath 
us. It is a city of white adobe houses roofed with red 
tiles, with the towers of churches and monasteries rising 
here and there. There are no chimneys, and the houses, 
mostly of one or two stories, look squatty. They stand 
along narrow streets that cross each other at nght angles. 
Two deep ravines, one of which is arched over, divide the 
city from east to west. In the centre is the Plaza Mayor, 
a great square on which face the cathedral, the naa 
ment palace, and the city hall. 

Quito is one of the ancient seats of learning in Siuth 
America. It has a university a half century older than 
Harvard, a library, a museum, an astronomical observa- 
tory, and a technical school. Its theatre is subsidized by 
the government and is visited by troupes of players from 
up and down the west coast. The special accommodations 
for persons in mourning are an odd feature of the theatre. 
They are boxes fitted with shutters so that the occupants 
can look through the slats and watch the performance 
or the audience without being seen themselves. When 
in deep mourning the afflicted use only the slats, but later 
the shutters are gradually opened. This custom reminds 
me of the Chinese, who send out white cards at the death 
of a relative to express great sorrow, and follow them a 
few months later with blue cards labelled, “Grief not so 
bitter as before.” 

The city is not one third as large as it was three hundred 
and fifty years ago, before the invasion of the Spaniards. 
Then it had several hundred thousand people with a 
better civilization, on the average, than the masses of 
Ecuadorian Indians enjoy to-day. According to tradi- 

48 


THE CAPITAL OF ECUADOR 


tion, there was a town on the site of Quito a hundred 
years before Christ was born, and it is known that a city 
existed here in 1000 A. D. It had long been the capital 
of an ancient Indian nation when it was captured by the 
Incas, and it was the northern capital of that mighty race 
when the city was taken by the Spaniards in 1534. This 
was about a hundred years before the cows began to mark 
out the streets of Boston. Atahualpa, the Inca monarch 
who was captured and murdered by Pizarro, had a palace 
at Quito, the roof of which, it is said, was covered with 
pure gold. It is believed that vast quantities of the 
treasures hidden by the Indians at that time are still 
buried in Ecuador. 

Quito has many Indians to-day, although most of its 
people are whites. The Indians from the country for miles 
around also come in to trade, and those seen on the 
Streets are of a dozen different tribes, with as many pic- 
turesque costumes. They have adopted the Christian 
religion, and go from church to church saying their pray- 
ers. Being extremely superstitious, they are controlled 
largely by the priests. 

Until recently Ecuador was entirely Catholic. Up 
to the beginning of the twentieth century its national 
constitution prohibited any other form of worship. 
Since then laws have been passed giving full religious 
liberty, and the Protestants have sent in missionaries who 
have distributed tons of Bibles throughout the land. 
However, the vast majority of the people probably will 
always be Catholic. 

One of the finest buildings in Quito is the Jesuit Church, 
and the convent of San Francisco is said to be one of the 
largest in the world. There are eleven monastic establish- 


49 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


ments, six of which are nunneries, and religious processions 
are frequently seen in the streets. The people of Quito 
have contributed so generously to the Church that the 
city has sometimes been called ‘‘The Little Mother of the 
Pope.” 

The government of Ecuador is vested in a president who 
rules through a cabinet of five ministers and a council of 
state. There is a congress elected by the people. The 
president has the power of veto, but the congress can 
pass a law over his veto. Just now the most pressing 
public questions are the improvement of the ports and the 
building of railroads. Means of transportation are so 
poor in the interior that the mails to the Oriente are 
carried only once a week, on horseback. In the past, 
travellers from the regions east of the Andes have gone 
almost around the continent to reach Quito. Rather 
than make the journey across country over the, rough 
mountain trails, they have gone down the Amazon to the 
Atlantic, thence by steamer to Buenos Aires, and by the 
Transandine Railway to Valparaiso, Chile. They there 
took another steamer up the west coast to Guayaquil, 
and made the last lap of the journey from that city up to 
the capital. 

Although the department of the Oriente occupies about 
sixty per cent. of the entire area of Ecuador, its white 
population, consisting chiefly of government officials, 
numbers only a few more than a hundred people. For- 
merly, there were many more whites employing large 
gangs of native rubber gatherers, but that industry has 
greatly declined in recent years. The region is fertile 
and well watered, and the Indians raise rice, corn, beans, 
sugar cane, bananas, and pineapples. When railway con- 

50 


THE CAPITAL OF ECUADOR 


nection is effected with the western part of Ecuador, the 
Oriente will be a promising field for colonists. 

Control of the expenditure of money involved in na- 
tional improvements is often the cause of the frequently 
occurring revolutions in the country. Each time I have 
visited it, Ecuador has been in the throes of an uprising. 
During my first trip to South America, the head of the 
administration was Don Alfaro, who later lost his life 
trying to recapture the presidency after he had been in 
exile in Panama. Alfaro was a born revolutionist, and 
had many narrow escapes. At one time he was captured 
by members of the rival political party while on a little 
Ecuadorian gunboat, and escaped by swimming to the 
shore on a barrel. At another time he lived for weeks in 
the wilds of Ecuador and Colombia while being hunted by 
government troops. 

One way in which a popular clamour against the 
government in power has been started is for a revolution- 
ary leader to charge that the president is plotting to sell 
the Galapagos Islands to another nation. These are, per- 
haps, the strangest islands in the world. They are 
officially known as the Archipelago of Colon, and are 
governed as a territory of the republic. Lying in the 
Pacific six hundred miles off the coast, they consist of ten 
large and innumerable small islands of volcanic origin. 
Their combined size is not greater than that of Rhode 
Island, although they are scattered over an area equal to 
our state of Maryland. They were discovered in 1535 
by a Spanish bishop whose boat was blown out of its 
course in going from Panama to Peru. The numbers of 
gigantic turtles he found there led him to call these bits 
of land “Galapagos,” the Spanish word for those reptiles. 


SI 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


Of human inhabitants there were none then or for three 
hundred years afterward. 

The islands were first explored by American whaling 
crews. Sperm whales were found to be abundant in the 
near-by waters, and for years the site was used as a base 
for the industry. In 1832 an expedition was sent by the 
Ecuadorian government to take formal possession of the 
Galapagos, perhaps with a view to obtaining a revenue 
from the whalers or because it was feared that a foreign 
country might annex the islands. In the ensuing years a 
half-dozen projects for the lease and exploitation of the 
islands by various countries came to naught, while Ecua- 
dor herself retarded their development by making them a 
penal colony. © 

The chief interest of the Galapagos group has been 
geological and biological rather than commercial. Here 
are found the largest turtles on earth, many of them being 
three feet high, and some weighing six hundred pounds. 
These reptiles have been killed in such numbers for the 
oil they contain that their extinction seems only a matter 
of time. Gigantic lizards of prehistoric type, often 
three or four feet long exist here also, while rare birds and 
plants abound. The islands have two hundred species of 
plant life that are found nowhere else in the world, as well 
as hundreds of well-known varieties. One peculiar weed 
growing here is the orchilla, often called dyers’ moss. 
Before the discovery of aniline dyes it was used in the 
manufacture of certain tints, and gathering it was at one 
time a profitable industry. In several parts of the island 
are found many trees, which, though not large, have a 
luxuriant growth and are often bound together with a 
jungle of creepers and underbrush. 


52 


Ie Pe 


Si eee ae 


Pe ORES Mam) 


. 9 


THE CAPITAL OF ECUADOR 


After the opening of the Panama Canal the islands came 
once more into the limelight. Lying directly on the ocean 
routes from Panama to New Zealand and Australia, they 
have great possibilities as future naval fuelling stations. 
They hold much the same relation to the Pacific entrance 
to the Canal that the West Indies do to the Atlantic 
entrance, and for this reason may some day possess in- 
ternational strategic importance. 


CHAPTER Vil 
THE HEAD-HUNTING JIVAROS 


ROBABLY the most warlike Indians in all South 

America are the Jivaros, who live in the forests of 

eastern Ecuador. They are man-hunters who 

preserve the heads of their slain enemies as tro- 
phies of war. I have seen several such heads during my 
travels and was once offered one for a hundred dollars in 
gold. I refused to buy it lest the ghost of the dead 
man haunt me the rest of my life. The head was about 
as big as my fist, the bones of the skull having been re- 
moved and the flesh so skilfully shrunken that none of the 
features were lost. The skin was black and the long 
thick hair was of the same raven hue. The nose was 
almost negroid in shape and the lips were sewed together 
with cotton strands that hung down like a fringe. 

When the Indians discovered that travellers and scien- 
tists were willing to pay high prices for these cured heads, 
they began to kill their enemies on the slightest pretext. 
The supply still not meeting the demand, the warriors cast 
aside their few remaining scruples, and killed members of 
their own tribes and sold their heads. Since then, the 
government has passed a law making it a crime to buy or 
sell zhanzhas, or cured heads, and the severest penalties 
are now imposed upon any one caught engaging in the 
traffic. 

After killing his victim the Jivaro cuts off the head close 

54 


The Jivaro Indians are known as head-hunters, having long been ex- 
perts in the ghastly art of preserving such trophies, skillfuly removing all 
the bones of the skull and shrinking the flesh without destroying the 
outlines of the features. 


The forest furnishes the Indian all the poles and thatch he needs in 
building his hut; also the logs which, when hollowed out, provide him with 
means of transportation along the river that usually flows by his front 
door. 


THE HEAD-HUNTING JIVAROS 


to the shoulders, and carries it to camp. There he opens 
it, crushes the skull, and takes out the bones. The skin 
is then sewed together from the crown to the base of the 
neck and painted with the juice of the huito, a fruit that 
looks much like an aguacate pear. This juice is a pre- 
servative and is smeared on both inside and out. The 
head is next filled with hot sand to preserve its shape. 
As the flesh dries, it is pressed inward from time to time, 
and some of the sand removed, until the head is reduced to 
one fourth or one fifth of its original size. As it grows 
smaller, a stone is inserted and the flesh is worked down 
upon it. This stone is taken out before the skin has 
grown too hard, but not until after the features are fixed. 
The head is then hung up over a fire to be cured by the 
smoke. 

The story is told that a red-whiskered German came out 
to Ecuador some years ago to learn the head-curing process. 
He went to Quito and then made his way eastward to the 
Indian country. He was never seen again, but about 
three months after his disappearance a beautifully cured 
head was brought in for sale. The skin was light and the 
features were Teutonic in cast, while on the chin was a 
beard the colour of brick-dust. 

A tale is also current that another Teuton whose head 
was sought by the Jivaros was no less a personage than 
Kaiser Wilhelm himself. In 1918, when newspapers 
all over America published the opinions of various readers 
as to what should be done with the Kaiser, it is said that 


the following advertisement appeared in a Riobamba news- 
paper: 
The Head of the Kaiser 


To him who produces it | offer a prize of one thousand sucres to 
convert it into a ghanzha and keep it as a war trophy. 


99 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


This offer was signed by an agent of the Jivaros, one 
of the few white men who have ever been on friendly terms 
with them. Being able to speak their language fluently, 
he had endeavoured to tell them of the World War, which 
was then at its height. Asa result, he was directed by the 
Jivaro chief to make the above announcement. 

The Jivaro Indians are well-built, good-looking men. 
They are polygamists, some of them having seven or eight 
wives. One reason for this is that when a girl marries all 
her sisters become wives also and share the husband with 
her. They have large families, but the population is kept 
down by feuds, during which one family will lie in am- 
bush for another and kill any of its members on sight. 
In order to be ready to defend themselves, they sometimes 
sleep in a sitting posture, each brave having his spear be- 
tween his knees. 

These Indians are very superstitious. They have 
witch doctors who brew a tea called hiahuasa from the 
roots and the leaves of a shrub. The drink has the 
effect of opium, in that it makes one dream and see visions. 
An American with whom I have talked tried it once. 
Shortly afterward spots began to dance before his eyes 
and a little later he saw pictures of saints. The witch 
doctor told him to concentrate his mind on his family. 
He did so and at first saw only snakes, but finally his 
family appeared before his mind’s eye far more realisti- 
cally than in any dream he had ever experienced before. 

The Jivaros live in villages, usually near a river or a 
small stream. Their houses are often sixty feet long and 
thirty feet wide, and are made of bamboo slats tied to- 
gether on a framework of poles. The roof is of thatch, 
and there is a heavy wooden door at each end. Several 

56 


THE HEAD-HUNTING JIVAROS 


families live in one house, the men sleeping at the front of 
the hut and the women at the back. The beds are long 
platforms slightly higher than the level of the floor. 
Between these platforms and the fires, which are kept 
burning all night, are wooden poles that serve as foot rests 
for the sleepers, who do not consider themselves com- 
fortable unless they roast their toes. Hanging about the 
walls of the houses are the hunting equipment and the 
personal adornments of the men. The only other furnish- 
ings are the earthenware pots in which the women cook 
the meals. When a Jivaro dies in one of these dwellings 
the body is buried under the house, and the whole building 
burned down. The other occupants then move away and 
build another house. 

The favourite weapon of some of the Ecuadorian Indians 
is a reed blow-gun, through which they shoot poisoned 
darts. These guns are long tubes just large enough for 
the arrows, which are wrapped with cotton at the ends 
to make them fit closely. The arrows are not more than a 
foot or a foot and a half long and not much thicker than 
a wooden toothpick. The poison with which their tips 
are smeared comes from Brazil. These blow-guns have a 
range of from forty to fifty feet and with them the Indians 
can hit a bird or a monkey perched in a tree top. For 
fighting they use also spears much like those of the knights 
of the Middle Ages. 

Some tribes poison their spears with the juice of a plant 
mixed with liquid from dead bodies in a state of putrefac- 
tion. They put up this preparation in earthenware jars or 
in joints of bamboo and make it an article of commerce 
among themselves. It is used also on hunting arrows to 
kill game, and does not, apparently, poison the meat. 


57 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


I have talked with a German who has spent three years 
among the Indians of the eastern Andes. He was twice 
wounded with poisoned arrows and had narrow escapes 
from the head-hunters near the River Napo. He tells 
me that some of the Indians in that region wear in the 
lobes of their ears cylinders of wood or metal as big around 
as the bottom of a tumbler. The holes for these strange 
ornaments are first made during childhood, and gradually 
enlarged by inserting bits of grass and twigs until they 
become big enough to hold the ear plugs. The same 
custom prevails in Burma and in other parts of the Orient, 
while in the highlands of east central Africa I have seen 
ear lobes stretched so much that when the plugs are taken 
out they hang down like straps. Their owners sometimes 
fasten them over the tops of the ears in order that they 
may not catch in the trees and brush of the forests. 

The few explorers who have made their way through the 
eastern slopes of the Andes from Ecuador to Bolivia say 
that cannibalism still exists among some of the Indian 
tribes. I have pictures of cannibal Indians, called Cachi- 
bos, who live along the River Pachitea in Peru. These 
people give as an excuse for the custom their belief that 
he who eats a man acquires all the courage and other good 
qualities possessed by the victim. Moreover, they say 
they would rather be eaten by men than by worms. The 
Cachibos hunt with blow-guns and poison-tipped arrows. 
They do not know the use of money, and all their dealings 
are by barter. They wash gold from the streams and 
bring it to the traders as nuggets and coarse dust. 

The Aguarunas are a warlike tribe who fight with 
poisoned arrows and build war towers for defence. They 
are polygamous and one man may havea half-dozen wives. 

58 


THE HEAD-HUNTING JIVAROS 


Both men and women wear nothing but short skirts of 
bark or cotton. 

Another curious tribe, found farther south in Peru and 
Bolivia along the Madre de Dios River, are the Huachi- 
pairis. For personal adornment they wear feathers and 
sticks thrust through holes pierced in their upper lips. 
They cultivate the soil and weave cloths and ropes of wild 
cotton. Like the Aguarunas and Jivaros, the men have 
several wives apiece. The warriors often make raids on 
the Quichuas, the descendants of the Incas who live on the 
high plateaus of the Andes, and steal the Quichua women 
to replenish their harems. Sometimes wives are bought 
and sold, the price of a woman being a knife or a hatchet. 
These Indians are unfriendly to the whites and so far 
the missionaries have been able to do little with them. In 
contrast to the many fierce tribes of savages known as 
“bad” Indians, are the Yumbos, or “good” Indians. For 
a long time they were in a state of peonage, and they are 
still submissive and willing to work for the whites for 
almost no wages. Although their customs show traces of 
the efforts of the Spaniards to Christianize them, they are 
superstitious to an extreme. During a severe epidemic of 
smallpox some years ago, when they died by the thousands, 
the survivors hid in the forest rather than submit to 
vaccination, which they believed would offend the evil 
one. 

The religion of the Indians of the eastern Andes is of 
the most primitive nature. Some tribes believe in a god 
and some in a future life, in which the soul goes through 
a series of transmigrations much like those described in 
the Buddhist faith. They say that the spirits of the good 
live again in jaguars and monkeys, while those of the evil 


19 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


inhabit the bodies of reptiles and parrots. Some of the 
Indian tribes believe there are two gods, one evil and one 
good, that fight for the control of mankind. The Conibos 
are sun worshippers, as were the Incas at the time of 
Pizarro. Nearly every tribe has its witch doctors, and 
all are honeycombed with a myriad of superstitions. 

Certain tribes have legends of the beginning of man. 
One is that when the world emerged from its original chaos 
all mankind lived in a great cave, the entrance to which 
was guarded by a tiger. The human race was kept 
prisoner by this beast until one day the liberator of man- 
kind, a giant among his fellows, fought with the tiger 
and killed it. Then man came out and populated the 
earth. After living so long in a cave the people had be- 
come very dirty. They realized this when they reached 
the light of day and so decided to wash. They heated 
water in a colossal earthen jar. Those who got the first 
bath came out white and thus the white race was created. 
Those who had the next bath were brown and formed the 
brown race. The last to bathe had only the dregs left in 
the jar and so were black. 

Some of the tribes wear clothes made of tree bark. | 
have a blanket of bark cloth made by these Indians. It is 
as large as a bed quilt and as soft and pliable as though it 
were wool. I have rolled it up and carried it about in 
a shawl strap. Still, it is merely the unwoven bark of a 
tree. The Indians make cuttings about the tree, tear off 
the bark in sheets, and soak it in water, after which they 
pound off the rough outer layers. The inner layers are 
composed of fine fibres so knit together by nature that they 
are not unlike cloth. They are warm enough for blankets 
and soft enough to take the place of a mattress. The same 

60 


THE HEAD-HUNTING JIVAROS 


sort of cloth 1s made in Uganda in tropical Africa, where it 
is a common article of clothing. Like the Africans, also, 
many of the South American savages are musical. They 
have reed or bone flutes and three-stringed violins. 
Drums, made out of hollow logs, are used for sending 
messages from camp to camp. 

None of these tribes associate with one another. They 
have no organized governments, and in each one the 
chiefs are generally chosen for their superior ferocity 
and strength. Their languages differ widely and there is 
no common method of writing. Some savages count by 
movements of the fingers, but all are in a low state of 
development and are sinking lower through contact with 
the vices and the liquor of the whites. 

Few of the South American Indians are equal, physically 
or mentally, to those of North America. Most of them 
are short in stature and they vary in colour from reddish 
brown to black. They have high cheek bones and black 
eyes, with long, straight black hair. Some are very 
strong, and a few are brave, but the majority are cowardly 
and afraid of white men. 

These primitive peoples are widely scattered and the 
social organization of many of them is in families rather 
than in tribes. There are probably not more than one 
hundred thousand all told on the eastern slopes of the 
Andes. The Geographical Society of Lima, Peru, esti- 
mates the number of savages in those regions at about 
one hundred and fifty thousand. 

Indians form three fourths of the population of Ecuador, 
but the majority of them are at least semi-civilized, as dis- 
tinguished from the wild tribes | have described. These 
people do all the rough work of the country, and until 1918 

61 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


most of them were practically the slaves of the land- 
holders. Slavery did not, of course, exist as in the days 
of Pizarro, when the Indians were branded, whipped, and 
killed at the will of their owners, but it was in force through 
the laws and customs by which the peons were kept in 
debt to their masters. Wages were low and once an 
Indian got in debt he found it almost impossible to get out. 

It was a common procedure for a planter who wanted 
labourers for his estate to go to the jails and settle the 
debts of such prisoners as agreed to work out the money 
thus paid. He then gave them very low wages, and al- 
ways held back a portion of what was due them. The 
farm hand was given a hut to live in, and received a daily 
ration of a little meat, rice, or beans, and some lard or 
salt. He received also a hat, three coarse cotton shirts, 
and three pairs of cotton pantaloons a year. In addition, 
he was given a few cents in money. The hours of work 
were from sunrise to sunset, and when a man skipped a day 
it was charged against his wages. The women and the 
children were forced to labour as well as the men. 

If a peon once was free from debt the conditions soon 
compelled him to become a debtor again. He had nothing 
ahead and if there was a death in his family he had to 
borrow money for the funeral. If he would be married 
by the priest he was charged six dollars, and consequently 
many of the Indians were obliged to forego the ceremony. 
For this reason it is said that seventy-five per cent. of 
the births in Ecuador formerly were illegitimate. 

In 1918 debt slavery was abolished by law, and since 
then conditions have greatly changed for the better. Al- 
though the lot of the unskilled Indian labourer and his 
family is still a hard one, wages and living conditions in 

62 


Most of the inhabitants of Ecuador are Indians. These primitive 
people, while no longer subject to either slavery or peonage, are desper- 
ately poor and have little hope or capacity for bettering their condition. 


Along the coast of Peru and Chile, between the Andes and the ocean, 
lies a narrow strip of desert, more barren than the Sahara, with sand dunes 


that are continually being shifted about by the winds. 


— - 


THE HEAD-HUNTING JIVAROS 


general have been much improved: Some of the workers 
have organized themselves into unions, and have thus 
been able to make better terms with their employers. 
The government also is doing much to give these people 
the advantages of education and modern civilization. 


CHAPTER VIII 
DOWN THE DESERT COAST OF PERU 


HAVE come from the jungles of the Ecuadorian tropics 

to the desert of Peru, a region as barren as any part 

of the Sahara. From the ocean to the Andes it is 

nothing but sand and rock, and the mountains them- 
selves are as sterile as the driest part of our great western 
plateau. 

Peru is divided naturally into three zones. The first 
is this desert coastal region, the second consists of the high 
Andean valleys and plateaus, upheld by the three parallel 
ranges of these mighty mountains, and the third slopes 
eastward from the Andes to the Amazon Valley. The 
latter region, which forms the larger part of the republic, 
has never been thoroughly explored. 

Peru extends north and south through one fourth of the 
length of the entire Andean highland. It is more than 
one thousand miles long, and in places more than seven 
hundred miles wide. If it could be laid down on the 
United States with the Chilean boundary at New Orleans, 
southern Ecuador would be somewhere near Minneapolis, 
and the country would extend from the Mississippi River 
eastward to Pittsburgh. Peru is equal to more than one 
fifth of the area of the United States, and is six times as 
large as Great Britain and Ireland. There is enough of it 
to make fourteen states as big as New York, and one of its 
departments, the name of which many of you have never 

64 


DOWN THE DESERT COAST OF PERU 


heard, is larger than Texas. That is Loreto, at the head- 
waters of the Amazon. The department of Cuzco, in 
southern Peru, is nearly as big as California, and there 
are other departments almost as large. 

The South American desert begins south of Tumbez, 
near the Ecuador-Peru boundary, and extends from there 
southward along the western coast of the continent for 
two thousand miles. It borders the whole of Peru and 
reaches down into northern Chile almost to Valparaiso. 
In no place is it more than ninety miles wide. At its 
eastern edge it is merged with the Andes, which, from 
their foot-hills to their snow-capped peaks, are practically 
without vegetation. 

I have seen something of the other great deserts of the 
world. I have been on the edge of the Kalahari in South 
Africa, and I have travelled through the Sahara from 
Morocco to the valley of the Nile. I have sailed along the 
coast of Arabia, and I know something of Gobi, on the 
edge of Mongolia. None of them is like the Peruvian 
desert, and none seems to be so fated to remain barren 
for all time to come. 

This desert forms a strip between the ocean and the 
great wall of the Andes. Those mountains rise almost 
precipitously from this long coastal plain. It is so cold 
at the great height of their peaks that winds from the 
east lose all their moisture by condensation before they 
reach the Pacific slope. It is this phenomenon that causes 
the rains that cover eastern South America with tropical 
verdure and gives the valleys of the Amazon and the 
Parana the greatest water supply known to man. But 
while most of the continent blooms like a garden, the 
lands west of the Andes have practically no rain. 

05 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


Throughout this desert strip of two thousand miles 
nearly all the water comes from the little rivers that have 
their sources in the melting snows on the tops of the moun- 
tains. It rains so seldom that there are people living on 
the coast who have not seen an umbrella in twenty years, 
and who get a good laugh over the occasional American 
who comes here to sell waterproof coats and rubber boots. 

Parts of the desert of Peru are rocky, like much of the 
Sahara, and parts are covered with sand as fine as that 
surrounding the pyramids on the banks of the Nile. In 
some places the sand gathers in great crescent-shaped 
dunes that move over the desert. The strong south 
winds roll the sand grains up over the top of the crescent, 
which, like the crest of a wave, moves steadily onward. 
The shifting dunes climb the hills and make their way 
through the valleys. They will not stop for roads or 
railways, and it is impossible to keep them back by wind- 
breaks or fences. Some of the railways that cross the 
desert have been covered over again and again, and it is 
repeatedly necessary to dig out the tracks so that trains 
may pass. The sand often covers up the trails, and fre- 
quently blots out landmarks. 

The only fertile regions of the desert are where the 
snow-fed rivers from the mountains cross it on their 
way to the sea. There are fifty-five such streams along 
the coast of Peru, and it is estimated that they make it 
possible to irrigate an area of fifty million acres. About 
two million acres are now cultivated, producing large crops 
of sugar and cotton. American tractors are used on the 
bigger plantations, and there are many sugar factories with 
modern machinery. These oases comprise the most im- 
portant agricultural lands of Peru. They feed the greater 

66 


DOWN THE DESERT COAST OF PERU 


number of the people and supply much of the export prod- 
ucts of the republic. 

My first port of call along the coast of Peru was Paita. 
It has streets of sand and sidewalks of wood. Most of 
the one- and two-story houses are of recent construction, as 
many of the buildings of the town were burned some years 
ago by a commission appointed to eradicate yellow fever 
and bubonic plague. The older structures are painted all 
the colours of the rainbow. The customs house, for 
example, is bright green, and when I passed through the 
plaza behind it I faced a church of sky-blue surrounded 
by buildings as yellow as gold. The plaza contains about 
the only bit of vegetation in the whole town. This is a 
garden no larger than an ordinary room, filled with 
stunted palm trees and thirsty-looking plants. 

Although a few motor trucks and automobiles are now 
in use in Paita and in other parts of the Piura district, 
donkeys form most of the traffic of the city. )]) saw cara- 
vans of them bringing vegetables, sugar, and rice to the 
port, and when I went to the post office I walked along 
beside the mail wagon, which was a dray drawn by a mule. 
Much of the drinking water is peddled from house to house 
in ten-gallon kegs carried by donkeys. 

Paita has a railroad to the Piura Valley, which is about 
sixty miles inland. I am told that this road may be 
extended a distance of four hundred miles over the Andes 
to connect with the Marafion River, one of the great tribu- 
taries of the Amazon. This extension would give Paita 
direct connection with the upper Amazon Valley and 
would bring one of the most fertile parts of South America 
within a few days’ travel of the Panama Canal. 

The Piura Valley is one of the richest of the desert oases. 

67 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


It produces the famous native cotton of Peru. Thousands 
of bales of this cotton, comprising sixty per cent. of the 
total crop, are shipped to the United States, where it 
brings several cents a pound more than the cotton raised 
in our Southern States. Practically all the rest of the 
yield goes to England. This “ Peruvian rough”’ cotton, as 
it is called, has a heavy, kinky fibre, and looks and feels like 
wool, It is usually spun on woollen machinery, and is 
mixed with wool in the manufacture of hats, hosiery, and 
underwear. It is said to give wool-and-cotton mixed 
cloth a finer lustre and to render it less liable to shrinkage 
than do other varieties of cotton. | 

Indeed, this land seems to have been one of the first 
homes of cotton. The plant was growing here when 
Pizarro came, and he found cotton cloth in the tombs of 
people who lived long before the Incas. The Incas un- 
doubtedly sold it also to tribes in other parts of South 
America, as mummies wrapped in cloth made of this 
characteristic Peruvian cotton have been found along the 
Amazon in Brazil. 

The Peruvian variety grows on a tree that bears for 
twenty years. The common method of planting is to put 
the seeds in the ground with a stick, and let the trees grow 
to a height of six or eight feet. After that they are cut 
back from year to year in order that the crop may be more 
easily gathered. 

The picking is done by native men, women, and children, 
who also sort the cotton by colour before it is ginned. | 
say by colour, for much of the Peruvian product is brown 
or red. Brown and white varieties grow on the same 
tree, and there may be brown and white lint in the same 
boll. The coloured cotton is sold largely to the Indians, 

68 


DOWN THE DESERT COAST OF PERU 


who use it for their ponchos and hammocks. While 
most of the crop is exported, some of it is manufactured 
in this country. There are several cotton factories in 
Peru, all but two or three of which are in Lima. 

The Peruvians are now growing also upland cotton and 
sea-island cotton from American seed. The sea-island 
cotton has but a small acreage, its production being 
limited to a few little valleys. The upland cotton here 
yields for three years in succession without replanting. 

Paita is near Peru’s most important oil-producing 
region. My steamer brought here two barge-loads of iron 
pipe and eight-inch cast-iron casings for the Lobitos cil 
fields, which are situated along the coast not far from here. 
Farther south I saw from the boat the derricks of the 
petroleum port of Talara. There are oil wells at Tum- 
bez, and there is a refinery at Zorritos, where between 
forty and fifty wells are producing. Oil is being found 
also in southern Peru, and even on the shores of Lake 
Titicaca, two miles above the sea, where it has been struck 
at a depth of about eight hundred feet. 

The annual petroleum exports of Peru are worth more 
than twenty million dollars, and the business is still only 
at its beginning. The oil is of a high grade, and it can be 
used for lighting as well as for fuel. The steamer upon 
which | am travelling down the coast burns fuel oil in- 
stead of coal, and has taken on a fresh supply at Paita, 
where oil is stored in a great round tank on the bluffs 
above the town. A pipe line runs down to the ocean, and 
the fuel is brought out to the steamer in a little oil barge. 

As at most of these west coast ports, steamer passengers 
are landed at Paita in small boats. There are few har- 
bours, and vessels must usually lie in the open roadsteads 


69 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


and transfer cargo by lighters. The moment our ship 
came to anchor off Paita white boats with red flags 
started out from the shore. They were rowed by bare- 
footed blue-clad Indian sailors with white caps on their 
heads. Behind them came the small craft of the natives 
bringing vegetables and other products out to the steamer, 
and still farther back were tugs towing the great barges 
loaded with freight to be taken on board. 

Among the merchandise the natives brought out to the 
ship were the finest of Panama hats. [| bought one for 
about ten dollars, although the first price of the Indian 
salesman was six pounds, or thirty dollars. I offered 
him one pound ten shillings and he came down to five 
pounds. At the last moment he took two pounds. The 
hat is as closely woven as the finest of silk and so soft that 
I can bundle it up in my pocket and hardly know it is 
there. The straws are no bigger around than a needle. 

The Panama hats that are now sold so largely in our 
stores are not made in Panama. They come from Ecua- 
dor, Colombia, and northern Peru. They are shipped 
from here all over North America, as well as to Germany, 
France, and England, and to other parts of South America. 
The Ecuadorians are now also exporting the straw, much 
of which comes down into Peru, where it is made into hats. 

Ordinary Panamas, such as are commonly sold in our 
stores, can be bought in Paita for one or two dollars 
apiece. They come chiefly from Guayaquil, which ex- 
ports several hundred dozen of them every month. The 
very finest Panamas cost so much that there is practically 
no demand for them abroad. Some, which sell here for 
as high as one hundred dollars, would cost twice as much 
in New York. One, made several years ago as a present 


79 


There are few sheltered harbours on the west coast, and large ships 
usually lie offshore. A newly arrived steamer is quickly surrounded with 
the rude craft of Indians peddling fish, fruit, or vegetables. 


The only water on the western slopes of the Andes comes from the rivers 
fed by the melting snows of the mountains, but it is estimated that these 
streams make possible the irrigation of some fifty million acres of land. 


DOWN THE DESERT COAST OF PERU 


to the King of England, was so finely woven that it could 
be folded into a package no larger than a man’s watch. 
That hat was more than six months in the making. It 
was of the finest straw, and the work upon it was done 
only during certain hours of the morning and evening, 
when the amount of moisture in the air was just right. 

The Panama hat is made from the leaf of a palm called 
the foquilla. This tree is now cultivated. It becomes 
full grown at eighteen months and lives for forty years or 
more. The straws are made from the new leaves, which 
are cut off just as they are about to unfold, and split with 
needles or with the fingernail. 

At the port of Eten, which was our next stop after Paita, 
the sea was so rough that passengers were lowered from 
the ship to small boats in a barrel, which had been turned 
into a chair by cutting part of it away. Travellers were 
brought aboard from the boats alongside in the same 
manner. [I saw three women thus lifted: one of them 
wrapped her head in her shawl and seemed to be praying 
fervently all the way up. 

Steaming on to the south, we came to Pacasmayo, 
which, with its low white buildings and flat roofs, looks 
like a town of Arabia. It lies on the coast, with the desert 
and the mountains behind it. It has a steel pier built 
by the American engineer, Henry Meiggs, when he was con- 
structing railroads in this part of South America. From 
the town a little railway runs back into the valley 
to Chilete and thence northward to Guadalupe. This 
line may some day be extended to the Amazon region by 
an easy pass over the mountains. 

High in the Andes not far from Pacasmayo is Ca- 
jamarca, where the Inca king, Atahualpa, was put to 


7! 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


death by Pizarro, the Spanish invader. Arriving at 
this northern capital of the Inca Empire on the fifteenth 
of November, 1532, Pizarro found it a well-built city lying 
in the beautiful valley of a little river, the waters of which 
irrigated many fields and gardens. ‘The use of the build- 
ings of the town as quarters for his troops was offered 
Pizarro by Atahualpa, who also sent a message from his 
camp some distance away that he would visit the Spaniard 
the following day. Thereupon Pizarro conceived a plan 
to seize the king, and ordered his soldiers to arm them- 
selves but to keep out of sight when Atahualpa arrived. 

Early the following morning the Inca army left the 
royal camp and proceeded to Cajamarca. Pizarro had 
with him only a handful of men and horses, but the 
native monarch was preceded by so many soldiers that 
it was almost nightfall before the last of them arrived in the 
city. As Atahualpa was borne before Pizarro, he was 
met and addressed by the friar Vicente de Valverde, who 
extended a cross in one hand and a Bible in the other. 
Valverde’s words, whether intentionally or because of 
their faulty translation by the interpreter, offended the 
Inca monarch, who disdained the offerings and threw them 
to the ground. 

At this action, Valverde, who has been depicted by 
many historians as a rascally trouble maker, shouted to 
the hidden Spanish soldiers: ‘Fall on—I absolve you!” 
In the slaughter that followed, hundreds of Indians were 
killed and Atahualpa was taken prisoner. 

The person of the Inca king was so sacred that his 
capture paralyzed the nation, and in spite of their over- 
whelming numbers the Indians seemed helpless. Ata- 
hualpa then said that if Pizarro would release him he 


72 


DOWN THE DESERT COAST OF PERU 


would fill the room in which he was confined with gold to a 
point as high as he could reach. This offer was accepted, 
and for several weeks gold was brought in great loads 
from all parts of Peru. The room was seventeen feet long 
and twenty feet wide, and the point up to which it was to 
be filled was designated by a red mark nine feet above the 
floor. The treasure was in many forms. Some of it 
consisted of gold plates torn from the Temple of the Sun 
at Cuzco. There were golden basins, drinking cups, 
vases of all kinds, and many objects of the finest workman- 
ship, beautifully carved. When the room was almost 
filled up to the mark indicated, Pizarro ordered the Indian 
goldsmiths to melt it all into ingots. There was so much 
gold that they worked day and night for a month at the 
task. Then Pizarro refused to let Atahualpa go, and after 
a trial that was a mockery of justice had him strangled to 
death. A prison now covers the spot where the palace 
stood, and in one of its rooms is a stone that the Indians 
say is still stained with Atahualpa’s blood. 

Salaverry, not far south of Pacasmayo, is an important 
sugar-exporting town. It is the port for Trujillo, a city 
of about fifteen or twenty thousand people. Trujillo 
was founded by Pizarro in 1535 and was named in memory 
of his native town in Spain. Near by are ruins of an 
ancient city built by the Yuncas, one of the tribes con- 
quered by the Incas. 

There are many ruins of Indian cities scattered over 
the Peruvian desert, and from some of them have been 
dug mummies in an excellent state of preservation. The 
desert air is as dry and healthful as that of Egypt. As in 
Egypt, it is the dryness that accounts for the good condi- 
tion of the centuries-old mummies dug up here. Most 


73 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


of the mummies found in Peru showed that the corpse was 
placed in a sitting posture, wrapped in cloth, and bound 
with string. During a former trip to this country | 
visited a number of cities from which such mummies had 
been dug, and I saw piles fifteen feet high containing skulls 
that had been taken from the excavations. 

Some of the ruins in this desert are the remains of cities 
that were in existence long before the Incas came. In 
the Jequetepeque Valley back of Pacasmayo I saw a large 
mound that was once the site of a palace, or possibly a 
temple to the vestal virgins of the sun. All about were 
bits of pottery, moulded by the people of an unknown 
nation of the past. The ruins showed that the building 
was nearly square and five hundred feet wide at the base. 
Its adobe walls had been plastered on the outside with 
mud and washed with colour. In other parts of the desert 
earthen vessels have been found that are believed to have 
been made by a people who were old when the pyramids 
of Egypt were young. 7 | 


74 


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4 
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ef 
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Going ashore on the Peruvian coast is not usually a matter of walk- 
ing down the gang-plank. It is more likely to mean being. lowered from 


steamer deck to a tender in a chair operated by a steam crane. 


The capital of Peru lies in the narrow Rimac Valley, eight miles inland 
from the Pacific, and one thousand feet above its level. It was founded by 
Pizarro only forty-three years after Columbus discovered America. 


CHAPTER IX 
THE CITY OF PIZARRO 


LIMB with me to the rocky top of San Cristobal 
and take a look over Lima, the capital of Peru. 
We are on the edge of the Rimac Valley, within 
eight miles of the Pacific Ocean, and about a 
thousand feet above it. From here the sea seems a wide 
streak of silver, beyond which are the mountainous islands 
that border the coast. At the water’s edge is the port of 
Callao, and directly opposite it the island of San Lorenzo. 
Behind us, half hidden in the clouds, is the westernmost 
range of the Andes, where 
In awful pride, enthroned above the skies; 
Peaks upon peaks in matchless grandeur rise 


’Mid frowning glaciers on whose snowy crest 
The savage vulture builds its craggy nest. 


San Cristobal is a bare hill of the desert, rising nine hun- 
dred feet above Lima. Its summit can be reached on foot 
or by an aérial tramway. On top of the hill, rising three 
hundred and fifty feet still higher into the air, are the 
steel towers of a radio station, from which messages are 
sent over the high wall of the Andes to the government 
station at Iquitos in the heart of the rubber country of the 
Amazon Valley, and even across the continent to Rio de 
Janeiro. 

From the top of San Cristobal we could throw stones 
upon the roofs of Lima beneath us. The city is a vast 


79 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


expanse of low, flat-roofed buildings, most of them of one 
or two stories, above which rise a cathedral and many 
churches. Almost directly below us is the great round 
Plaza de Toros, the immense bull ring where fights are 
held every Sunday, and where the Limefios come by the 
thousands to see their favourite matadors butcher the 
bulls. Some of these people seem to be quite as blood- 
thirsty as those who watched the gladiatorial fights of 
ancient Rome. Only last Sunday, when the bulls were 
not considered as fierce as they should be, the crowd hissed 
the fighters and drove them out of the ring. They had 
even begun to tear up the seats and set fire to the building 
when the police rushed in and restored order. In recent 
years boxing and horse-racing have grown in popularity 
and the latter now rivals bull-fighting as a favourite sport. 
The Jockey Club of Lima is famous all over the west coast, 
and during the races that are held from July to December 
leaders of society, including the president and his officials, 
are frequently in attendance. 

The winding stream that runs through the city 1s the 
Rimac River. It springs forth from the glaciers of the 
Andes, and gives life to the valleys below, providing water 
to irrigate the orchards, the vineyards, and the fields of 
grain along its course. Lima is built in the Peruvian 
desert, and the irrigated lands that surround it are scat- 
tered through fifteen small valleys. They are divided 
into about one hundred and eighty estates, many of 
which are large holdings. Practically the whole support 
of the city comes from this region and from its trade with 
the rest of Peru. 

Lima was founded by Pizarro only forty-three years 
after Columbus discovered America. In honour of the 

76 


THE CITY OF PIZARRO 


sovereigns of Spain he called it ‘Ciudad de los Rayes,”’ or 
The City of the Kings, and it was so known for a long time 
afterward. The present name of Lima is a corruption of 
the word “Rimac,” the name of the river on which it is 
built. The city had grown great one hundred years before 
the ground on which Chicago now stands was trodden by the 
feet of white men. It was the capital of all South America 
when our country was subject to England, and to-day it 
is one of the most interesting cities upon the two con- 
tinents. 

But let us go down from San Cristobal and make our 
way over the Rimac to the main part of the city. One of 
the first places we visit is the museum, which vies with the 
one at Cairo in its relics of a bygone civilization. Its 
collections of potteries, textiles, and mummies depict not 
only the handicraft of the Inca régime, but of the more 
ancient civilizations of centuries before. Side by side 
with these objects of antiquity are many evidences of 
modern Peru and its progress in commerce and industry. 
One of them is the remains of the first airplane to cross the 
Alps, in which a young Peruvian aviator lost his life. 

Lima is sprinkled with great plazas or squares containing 
fountains and gardens, and extending out from these run 
narrow thoroughfares, other streets crossing them at right 
angles. The main business streets are not more than 
thirty feet wide, and the car tracks are so close to the 
sidewalk that one has to be careful lest he lose a leg as he 
walks along. Another thing that makes the visitor to 
Lima stay on the alert to keep his bearings is the system 
by which the streets are named. In addition to a thor- 
oughfare having a designation for its entire length, each 
block has also an individual name. 


77 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


The buildings are close to the street, and in the resi- 
dential section the ground-floor windows are barred. The 
houses of two or three stories have balconies that extend 
out over the sidewalks. Some of these balconies are so 
wonderfully carved that they make me think of the 
harem quarters of Cairo or old Spain. In the business 
parts of the city, where most of the stores have living 
quarters above them, one sees long lines of them stretching 
from one end of the street to the other. | 

Lima has practically no backyards, and only in the 
suburbs are there outside gardens. Most of the residences 
surround courts or patios upon which the principal rooms 
face. The larger houses cover a good deal of ground, a 
single one sometimes having twenty or more rooms and 
several large courts in which are fountains, growing 
plants, and even trees. 

Often the rooms that do not open on the court are 
lighted by little dormer windows that extend up through 
the flat roofs and look like chicken coops. It is difficult, 
in fact, to tell the dormers from the real chicken coops. 
There are thousands of chickens that are hatched, lay their 
eggs, and grow fat for the kitchens on the roofs of this 
city. On a previous visit here | was awakened every 
night by the crowing of the cocks above me. There was 
one asthmatic old rooster that crowed me awake regularly 
at five a. m. and another that sometimes made the air 
shake at midnight. I have not yet seen a cow on the 
roofs, though I am told that some families have their 
stables so located, the cattle not being taken down until 
they are to be killed. Nowhere are there any chimneys 
to be seen. Practically all the cooking in Lima is done 
over charcoal, the fumes of which escape as best they 


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In keeping with its early name, “City of the Kings,” Lima was noted 
in colonial times for its beautiful buildings, in which the Spanish aristo- 
crats combined the Moorish architecture with the fine carving done by 
the native Indians. 


erred oth. 
thy ats 


A 


Pizarro selected the Plaza de Armas as the centre of the future city of 
Lima, and laid the cornerstone of the first cathedral erected on this site. 
The present structure contains the bones of the conqueror. 


THE CITY OF PIZARRO 


can. During recent years electric stoves have come into 
use. 

Many of the older buildings are beautiful and ex- 
ceedingly comfortable. Some of them are constructed of 
sun-dried brick, and some have roofs of plaster spread 
over a framework of wood lathed with bamboo canes. 
The outer walls are covered with stucco, and such buildings 
have a substantial appearance in spite of their flimsy con- 
struction. 

Of late many fine houses of reinforced concrete have 
been put up, and along the Avenue of the Exposition, for 
instance, are residences that would be considered fine 
anywhere in the world. This street is almost as wide as 
Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, and_ has along 
its centre a continuous garden of flowers, shrubs, and trees. 
It is a popular place in the afternoon, when the sidewalks 
are crowded with promenaders, and processions of motors 
and smart carriages move along the pavement. 

Lima has almost two hundred thousand inhabitants and 
is steadily growing. Its population and business have in- 
creased since the opening of the Panama Canal, and when 
it has better hotels it will be as delightful a city as one can 
find along the west coast. Its resorts on the Bay of 
Chorillos, where regattas and water sports are held each 
summer, are already popular places for both Peruvians and 
foreigners. In winter, because of the heavy fogs near the 
sea, many of the people go inland to Chosica, in the 
Andean foothills. 

But let us leave the streets and go into the Cathedral. 
It is in the heart of the city, and its towers can be seen 
from almost anywhere in the Rimac Valley. It faces 
the Plaza de Armas with its palm trees and its beautiful 


79 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


fountains, and is said to be the finest church edifice on the 
American continent, with the single exception of the 
cathedral in Mexico City. It was founded by Pizarro 
before John Smith landed at Jamestown. Ninety years 
were taken to complete it, and although it has been 
damaged again and again by earthquakes, each time it 
has been rebuilt. 

The interior of the Cathedral is impressive. The high 
altar is of massive silver construction, and the stalls of the 
sanctuary are fine specimens of the best carving done by 
the Indians when that art was still in its prime. On the 
walls are fine paintings by Murillo and other masters, and 
the chapels are of exceeding beauty. 

I was especially impressed by the chapel of Pizarro. 
The little verger of the Cathedral took me into it, and 
under the altar he showed me the coffin in which lie 
Pizarro’s bones. The casket is of white marble with glass 
sides and top. The verger lighted a candle and waved it 
up and down over the glass, and as he did so I could see 
all that is now left of the first Spaniard to explore and 
conquer the west coast of South America. His skeleton, 
which is as black as old mahogany and looks as though 
it were varnished, lies upon a red velvet cushion em- 
broidered with gold. The skull, which rests on a pillow, 
is fastened to his backbone by wires through the ears. 
The jaw is a trifle drooping, the nose is prominent, and the 
great eyeless sockets stared up at me as I gazed down 
through the top of the casket. As I looked more closely 
the whole seemed merely a shell. The shins have begun to 
peel, showing the honeycombed structure of the bone 
beneath. I am told that in times past pieces have been 
cut off and given to relic hunters, but as far as I could 

80 


THE CUY, OFVWPIZARRO 


see, most of the skeleton is intact, though decidedly 
leathery and the worse for wear. From the outside of the 
coffin I copied these words: 

Capitan General Don Francisco Pizarro, Fundador de Lima en 18 
de enero de 1535. Muerto en 26 de junio de 1541. 

It was on the latter date that Pizarro was murdered by 
followers of his former partner, as a result of a quarrel over 
the division of the Inca territory. 

Lima has seventy churches in all, and nearly every one 
is worth visiting. The church and convent of San 
Francisco are said to have cost two million dollars. The 
altar of Santa Rosa, the patron saint of Lima, had in it at 
one time fifteen hundred pounds of gold and silver, and 
jewels that included fourteen hundred diamonds, twelve 
hundred emeralds, six hundred rubies, and one hundred 
and twenty fine pearls. 

Lima appears to be a godly city although there is a 
Methodist bishop here in my hotel who says it is the most 
bigoted on earth. There are priests and nuns everywhere, 
and great monasteries and convents galore. Most of the 
people are devout churchgoers, and on Sunday morning 
the streets are filled with families on their way to mass. 
Although on other days the women wear as gay apparel 
as in our own cities, many of them attend Sunday services 
clad all in black. The usual head-dress is a black cloth 
or lace mantilla, covering the hair and the neck so that 
only the face is visible. I am told that in some churches 
women are not supposed to enter wearing a hat and that 
those who do so are tapped with a long stick by the sexton 
and told to remove their headgear. The men sit by 
themselves on one side of the church and the women have 
their seats on the other. 

81 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


I find that there is a great movement going on in this 
country for freedom of religious worship. Laws have 
been passed by the national congress making it possible 
for any person to establish any kind of church anywhere he 
pleases. Previously, the Protestant missionaries had not 
been permitted to introduce their religion in the interior. 
Women also are demanding a greater freedom and are 
beginning to take their places in the business and pro- 
fessional world. One woman has organized a sort of 


nursery hospital for children, and another has opened a 


woman’s exchange, where needlework and other articles 
may be bought and sold. Many are teachers, and hun- 
dreds are stenographers and typists. The changing idea 
regarding the feminine sex was reflected in a much-talked- 
of float at the celebration of the Peruvian centennial. It 


was called “The Lima that is Passing,” and showed,’ 


among other things, a sefiorita wearing her black manta 
peering out from behind the shelter of her barred balcony 
windows. 

Girl students are now enrolled in the University of San 
Marcos at Lima, the oldest in all America, which was 
founded a century before Harvard. It was modelled 
after the ancient University of Salamanca, and though it 
has been destroyed again and again by earthquake and 
siege, it stands to-day as the foremost institution of learn- 
ing in Peru. 

Near the Cathedral and facing the Plaza is the national 
palace, where I called upon some of the government 
officials. It was built about the same time as the Cathe- 
dral, and has all the features of Spanish architecture in the 
days of Columbus. It covers a whole city block, and has 
several patios in which are royal palms and tropical 

82 


Monuments to liberty, and mounted constabulary to preserve it, are 
characteristic of Peru, which, like other South American republics, has 
experienced more than one revolution since it won independence from 
Spain. 


Yh eye 


In the chamber where Peruvian senators now deliberate upon the wel- 
fare of the republic, the black-robed officers of the Spanish Inquisition 
once sat in solemn session and sentenced luckless heretics to imprison- 
ment and death. 


“a! ooo 


EE Cry OFS PIZARRO) 


flowers. On my way in I was shown a fig tree said to 
have been planted by Pizarro. It is more than three 
hundred years old and is still bearing fruit. 

The government palace formerly contained the residence 
and offices of the president of Peru. I have interviewed 
two presidents of this country, and have talked with them 
about its progress and development. Not long ago the 
government brought in experts from the United States to 
assist in formulating new methods of administration. As 
a result, improvements in the national commercial and 
educational systems have been effected, sanitary condi- 
tions bettered, and police, customs, and harbour regula- 
tions revised. 

The president is elected by a direct vote of the people 
for a term of five years. He has a cabinet of five members. 
The legislative branch of the government is divided be- 
tween a senate of thirty-five members and a house of 
representatives of one hundred and ten. The senate 
occupies a building on the Plaza Bolivar that was once the 
seat of the Spanish Inquisition, and in front of which 
hundreds of victims were executed and burned to death. 
The interior of the Inquisition chamber is lined with 
beautiful woodwork, the ceiling especially being noted for 
the rare and intricate designs of the carving. In con- 
trast to the Old World beauty of the room is an interesting 
and up-to-date device by which members vote on questions 
before the senate. Each desk is equipped with an elec- 
tric button, which, when pressed, registers the vote at the 
presiding officer’s table. 


83 


CHAPTERVX 
IN THE SHOPS AND MARKETS OF LIMA 


HAVE just returned from a morning in the city market 

of Lima. I arrived at the market house at seven 

o'clock and ate my desayuno at a little restaurant 

among the stalls. This meal, which the Peruvians 
eat upon rising, consists of two small pieces of toast and 
a cup of coffee or tea. The real breakfast is not eaten 
until eleven or twelve o'clock. Being afflicted with a 
good American appetite, I pieced out this scanty menu 
with a bunch of white grapes as big as my head, the 
grapes themselves being the size of damson plums. 

The table was large and I had hardly taken my seat 
before an Indian woman with a broad-brimmed Panama 
hat coming well over her bronzed features sat down 
opposite me and ordered some ice cream, which was 
served in a champagne glass. Then a pock-marked 
Peruvian of the lower class took a seat at the table, and 
just as I was about to leave, a fat old Negress, wearing a 
black manta that covered the entire upper part of her 
body and all of her head except her face, slid down into a 
chair beside me. While eating, I was besieged by all 
sorts of peddlers, from women who offered me lottery 
tickets to men who were selling waxen images of the 
Virgin Mary dressed in the latest styles. 

All about were the queer characters that make up the 
masses of the Peruvian capital. There were cooks by the 


84 


IN THE SHOPS AND MARKETS OF LIMA 


hundreds doing their daily marketing. Some were 
Chinese, some Negroes, and many had the yellow skins 
that showed their combined Indian and Spanish ancestry. 
There were scores of women dressed all in black, and many 
in calico dresses and straw hats. Not afew were mountain 
folk, and they looked about with eyes of wonder at the 
strange sights of the great city. The crowd numbered 
thousands, and was the busiest assemblage I have seen 
in Peru. 

The Lima market covers a city square, the chief stalls 
being in a great court roofed with galvanized iron and 
surrounded by stores. As I strolled among the fruit 
peddlers I saw white and red grapes, apples as yellow as 
gold, and rosy peaches, as well as pomegranates, guavas, 
and tunas, the fruit of the cactus. There were oranges, 
lemons, pineapples, and bananas, and bushels of alligator 
pears. The latter cost only five or ten cents each, yet 
| had to pay fifty cents for the one I ordered with my 
dinner at the hotel yesterday. 

Among the vegetables were string beans as long as my 
arm and yuccas as big around as a baseball bat and often 
two feet in length. They are the roots of a species of lily 
plant and are eaten like potatoes. I saw roasting ears 
at nearly every vegetable stand. Some of them were 
bright yellow and others as black as my boots. I saw 
grains of hominy twice the size of the largest lima beans. 
They come from a corn grown here that is so mealy that 
the Indians make flour of it by pounding it with a stone. 
There were many tomatoes, great heads of cauliflower 
and cabbage, muskmelons and watermelons, and other 
fruits the names of which I do not know. 

A large part of the market is devoted to meats and game. 

85 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


I] saw lamb, kid flesh, and great cages of guinea pigs, which 
when cooked taste like squab pigeons or tender young 
squirrels. There were stalls full of corbina, which is a 
large and sweet-fleshed fish not unlike the bluefish of the 
Atlantic, though of a more delicate flavour. A certain 
variety of Peruvian fish is considered especially delicious 
when served raw with the juice of a lemon. The acid 
seems to have the same effect on the flesh as boiling, and 
it is thought even better than the raw fish eaten in Japan. 
There are also many kinds of shell fish, including a clam 
called the sevorita. Its flesh is as white as snow except for 
a morsel of meat the colour of the brightest red pepper. 
About the only sea food I have eaten here that I do not like 
is the Peruvian oyster, which is parboiled and served on 
the half-shell. 

There is no place that I have yet visited that has so 
much pepper and potatoes upon its tables as I find here. 
It is said that the Peruvians eat more pepper than salt. 
They serve it with nearly everything, and one always finds 
beside his plate a little dish of a sort of red pepper paste 
called aji. Papas con aji is a favourite concoction made 
of potatoes and pepper with a sauce of tomatoes and 
eggs. It is as hot as fire, but not bad after you get used 
to it. Papas rellena is made of mashed potatoes mixed with 
olives, onions, eggs, and raisins, and fried. Papas con 
arros 1s potatoes cooked with rice. The chief meal of 
many of the poorer class of people is a soup made by 
cooking together nearly every kind of vegetable and a 
goodly portion of meat. The soup is drained off and 
served clear, and the vegetables and the meat are brought 
in on a separate plate to be eaten afterward. 

Peru, it seems to me, is the paradise of the housekeeper. 

86 


EN ge ee a _ 


ie ee ae ee ee 


Pere 


Lima does most of its business on the ground floor, the upper stories 
of the buildings along the Mercadero being devoted to living quarters. 
Many of them have handsomely carved balconia and galleries. 


One of the pleasures of a visit to Peru is eating its delicious fruits, many 
of which are not grown in our country. Panniers slung across a burro’s 
back provide the native substitute for our push-carts. 


IN THE SHOPS AND MARKETS OF LIMA 


There are few places where it is easier to manage a home 
than here. The cooks do all the marketing, the ladies of 
Lima seldom going out of the house except to shop or visit. 
The cook is allowed a certain amount of money a day, for 
which he is expected to supply the meals. In other 
words, you board with your cook. If you havea good one, 
you are better and more cheaply served than if you try to 
manage it all yourself. At the same time, the cook 
usually makes a profit from the marketing allowance in 
addition to his wages. Servants are cheap in Peru. The 
native families pay less than the foreigners, and in the 
country districts there are many house servants who do 
not get much more than their board and clothes. / 

Outside of the market much of the peddling of Lima is 
done by women, who ride on horseback from house to 
house. Nearly all the milk is carried in cans tied to the 
sides of a horse, upon the back of which the woman sits 
with her legs straddling the animal’s neck. When she 
reaches a house where she has a customer she slides down 
over the horse’s neck, lifts off one of the cans, carries it 
inside, and pours out a quart or a pint, according to order. 
There are also many women vegetable peddlers. Other 
peddlers are men and boys who sit just in front of the 
tails of their donkeys with their backs against their loads 
of goods. There are no huckster wagons, and the drays 
of the city are long-bodied two-wheeled carts, each pulled 
by three mules abreast. 

In the chief shopping section only the newest of the 
stores have plate-glass windows, and there are no fancy 
fronts with gorgeous displays that may be looked at 
Sundays and evenings. Most of the stores have no 
windows at all. They are shut in from the street by great 

87 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


doors that are removed during business hours. The sun- 
light comes in through the door or from the roof. The 
shops are separated only by thin walls, and strolling 
along in front of them is like walking through a museum or 
an Oriental bazaar. The sidewalks are narrow and the 
merchandise is displayed close to the streets. Many of 
the dry-goods stores hang fancy patterns of cloth from the 
ceiling, and the larger establishments have piles of goods 
stacked upon the floor near the street. Notions of every 
kind are hung from strings stretched from wall to wall, and 
all sorts of unusual ways of display are contrived. Asa 
rule, the prices are high. The best from all over the 
world is brought here for sale, for this city, while not 
a rich one, has thousands of well-to-do people. They 
make as many trips to Europe as do our own wealthy 
families, their children are educated abroad, and the 
women frequently go to Paris to buy the latest styles in 
clothes. 

The chief shopping hours are from four to six o’clock in 
the afternoon. Then the streets are thronged with men 
and women, and the crowd is as great as that on F Street 
in Washington at about the same time of day. One 
difference here is that no one is in a hurry. The people 
saunter along or stop and chat with their friends. Nearly 
everyone is well dressed, and nearly every man, old and 
young, carries a cane. There are many women wearing 
the fashionable styles of to-day, and there are also many 
who are clad in the dead black that the lady of Lima of 
the past always wore when she went out to walk. Such 
women do not wear hats, but instead wrap a shawl of fine 
black goods about the head, pinning it back so that the 
face alone shows. This background adds to their beauty, 

88 


IN THE SHOPS AND MARKETS OF LIMA 


and the costume is more becoming than the changing 
fashions. 

There is no business done in Lima on the Sabbath. The 
stores are closed and the great doors fastened with pad- 
locks. There is not a sign of goods of any kind to be 
seen. Sometimes there is a grating at the top of the door 
for ventilation, and sometimes a round hole has been made 
lower down so that if the owner is within he may look 
out; but there is no sign of business anywhere. This is 
so also in the evenings of week days. Nearly all the 
stores close at six o’clock, and after dark the streets are 
almost deserted, except near the movies. The barricades 
in the past have protected the merchants’ stocks in times 
of political disturbances and revolutions. 

I find American goods for sale in all the stores, although 
the merchants are mostly English and German, with some 
Peruvians and a number of Chinese and Italians. The 
hardware stores carry American axes, hatchets, and other 
tools, and there are many agencies for American ma- 
chinery. Much of the cotton print cloth comes from our 
country, and American canned goods have a great sale 
here. If I want to pay high prices, I can buy a pair of 
shoes made in the United States, or one of our American 
hats sold in competition with those from England and 
France. The Peruvians have mills not far from Cuzco 
where they are turning out blankets and underwear, but 
most of their other woollens still come from abroad. Just 
now the stores are showing more and more goods from 
Germany, which is successfully reéstablishing its pre-war 
market in Peru. 

An American enterprise that is doing much for our trade 
with Peru is the publication of the West Coast Leader, a 


89 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


weekly paper printed in English here in Lima. This 
journal is devoted to opening up Peru to English and 
American capital and to the pushing of foreign trade. 
Its editor was for a long time a newspaper man in the 
United States. 

At the present time the chief North American firm doing 
business on the west coast of South America is the house of 
W.R.Graceand Company. It has its head offices in Lon- 
don and New York, with branches in Peru, Bolivia, and 
Chile. This company, which has been operating here for 
more than a generation, deals in all kinds of merchandise, 
from a small package of goods to rolling stock for a rail- 
road, and it handles big contracts involving millions of 
dollars. The Graces have long run a line of steamers 
from New York to western South America. The company 
is known everywhere for the ability and probity of its 
officials and members, and it is an institution of which the 
United States may well be proud. 

Another opportunity for American capital down here is 
in the establishment of a line of first-class hotels along the 
west coast. There should be one at Guayaquil, another 
at Quito, and a third at Lima. Since the opening of the 
Panama Canal there has been a great increase in tourist 
travel to this part of the world, but at present the hotel 
accommodations are, to say the least, very poor, and the 
rates are about as high as at home. 

I have been stopping here at the Maury, one of a chain 
of a half-dozen hotels under the same ownership. It 
vies with the Grand as the best hotel in Peru. It is a 
great two-story structure with wide balconies. The 
best accommodations I could get were a room facing the 
street and, back of it, a little dark sitting room. There 


ye 


IN THE SHOPS AND MARKETS OF LIMA 


are no private bathrooms. Yet the Maury is usually 
filled and I understand that it is paying big dividends. 

The port of entry for Lima is the coast city of Callao, 
which for all practical purposes has become the “down- 
town” district of the capital, as many of the Limefios have 
their places of business there. When Pizarro founded 
the City of the Kings he selected a site far enough from 
the sea to be safe from buccaneers and pirates, yet only 
eight miles from a fairly good harbour on the west coast. 
The first settlement, which was afterward destroyed by an 
earthquake and a tidal wave, lay to the north of the pres- 
ent city. Here, on the tower of the castle of San Felipe, 
was the last place on the American continent over which 
floated the flag of Spain, the royalist troops having made 
their last stand here during the War of Independence. 

Callao lies on a bay shaped like a great half-moon and 
guarded by rocky islands. Part of the harbour is further 
protected by a stone mole built out into the bay. Just 
opposite Callao, lying parallel with the coast and less than 
three miles away, is the island of San Lorenzo, which some 
day, according to present plans, will be joined to the main- 
land. The water between the southern end of this island 
and the coast is shallow, and by building a breakwater 
the two can be united to make a deep anchorage basin 
entirely protected from the sea, and large enough to hold 
any of the great fleets of the world. 

Callao has a large dock at which steamers and sailing 
vessels can discharge their cargoes, although many of the 
ships do as mine did and anchor out in the bay, landing 
their freight and passengers in smaller boats. As I went 
ashore at Callao I counted forty sailing vessels, loaded 
with lumber from Puget Sound, and with grain, rice, and 


QI 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


other heavy cargo. There were also many steamers, some 
Peruvian, some Chilean, and some from the United 
States. I saw a British boat of twelve thousand tons 
starting out for Europe, and a Japanese liner from the 
Far East. Among the curious craft were three little 
war vessels of the Peruvian navy and two submarines. 
Each year about fifteen hundred steam and sailing vessels 
call at Callao. It is the port of entry for many of the 
imports into Peru and the outlet for the copper produced 
in the famous Cerro de Pasco mines high up in the Andes. 

On the dock | bargained with a cholo, or half-breed 
Indian, to take my eight pieces of baggage to Lima. They 
were loaded upon a mule cart and transferred to the 
tramway, by which they were carried to the capital, and 
thence by cart to my hotel. I rode to Lima by trolley, 
first passing through one of the wide streets of Callao. 
It was lined on both sides with trees, back of which stood 
low, flat-roofed buildings, built in blocks and painted in all 
the colours of the rainbow. Some of the streets were clean 
and modern but many were dirty and smelly. Fora long 
time a common practice was to put garbage on the roofs 
and in the streets, where flocks of vultures acted as scav- 
engers. These birds were protected by law, severe penal- 
ties being imposed on anybody who killed one of them. 

After leaving the city we passed through orchards, gar- 
dens, vineyards, and fields of sugar cane and grain, sur- 
rounded by mud walls as high as my waist. The fields 
were irrigated by water from the Rimac River, and their 
bright green was refreshing in contrast with the barren 
mountains above. For much of the way we rode between 
rows of willow trees from which branches are cut off every 
year to make wicker baskets. 


Q2 


CHAP TE Rw at 
ON THE WORLD’S HIGHEST RAILROAD 


S I dictate these notes to my secretary we are both 
seated on an oil-burning engine on the very top 
of the Andes. The air is so thin that I can 
hardly talk, and even the roaring fire in the 

furnace beneath us does not take the chill from our bones. 
We are a short distance from Ticlio and near one of the 
highest railroad passes of the world. We are higher in 
the air than any mountain in the United States outside 
Alaska. We are one hundred feet above the top of Mont 
Blanc and two thousand feet higher than the sacred 
peak of Fujiyama, in far-off Japan. If I could fly from 
here in an airplane north to Pike’s Peak I would have to 
drop three times the height of the Washington Monument 
before I could land on the summit of that mountain, and 
if I descended one thousand feet farther I would still be 
far above the height of Mount Mitchell, the highest peak 
in the Appalachians. Our actual altitude is 15,665 feet 
above the sea, and all about us are mountains that rise 
several thousand feet higher. Over there is Mount Meiggs 
the altitude of which is more than seventeen thousand 
feet, and not far away is another mountain of twenty thou- 
sand feet elevation. 

We seem to be in a great fortification on the roof of the 
world. We are in a basin surrounded by gigantic walls 
of blue, black, white, red, and gray rock. We are also in 


he 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


a vast garden of glaciers. From where I am sitting I can 
count a half-dozen mighty rivers of ice, some of them so 
near that by standing up in the cab I could almost throw 
a stone to them. ‘These glaciers are of enormous extent. 
I can see one that seems to cover the whole top of the 
mountain; and near it another has burst out of the rocks 
and, like an icy shroud, has dropped itself down to the 
valley. 

A moment ago the sky was bright blue. Now the wind 
has come up and the clouds hang low over the darkened 
ice. On these mountain heights the sun of the tropics 
fights with the cold of the highlands in an endless battle. 
One can never be sure of the weather. It may be clear 
for a week or it may snow day and night. In the winter 
the mountain blasts are so fierce and the glare is so great 
that the trainmen have to wear smoked glasses to keep 
from becoming snow-blind. 

This road is known as the Central Railway of Dent 
It belongs to the government and is under the manage- 
ment of the Peruvian Corporation, a British company that 
operates more than half of the railways of the republic. It 
runs from Callao on the Pacific to Oroya high up in the 
mountains, a distance of one hundred and forty miles. 
There the road turns south to Huancayo, seventy-eight 
miles away. It is planned to extend that line on to 
Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Incas, and already forty 
or fifty miles of track have been laid beyond Huancayo. 
From Ticlio, the highest point on the main line, a branch 
nine miles long goes to the Morococha mines, crossing the 
range at 16,805 feet, the highest point reached by any 
standard-gauge railway in the world. 

The Central Railway was suggested by a Peruvian, but 


94 


With one of the largest and safest harbours on the west coast of Peru, 
Callao has been the chief port of the republic ever since the days when the 
treasure ships sailed from here for Spain laden with silver and gold bullion. 


The highest railroad in the world climbs up over the Andes by following 
the course of the Rimac, using tunnels, switchbacks, and even turning aside 
the river itself to reach the topmost point, 15,665 feet above sea level. 


ON THE WORLD’S HIGHEST RAILROAD 


the man who laid it out and constructed the greater part of 
it was Henry Meiggs, an American. Meiggs raised the 
money to build it, and, in fact, he is entitled to most of the 
credit for its construction. He began work on it in 1870, 
and in 1876, when he died, it was completed as far as 
Chicla, a point more than two and a half miles above the 
sea. By that time the twenty-seven or twenty-eight 
million dollars that he had raised for its construction had 
all been spent and the work stopped. It was resumed 
some years later, and in 1893 was completed to Oroya. 
The extension to the rich valley of Huancayo was finished 
about fifteen years later. 

The road was originally planned to reach the rich 
silver and copper mines of Cerro de Pasco, but it was not 
until some years later, when the mines were bought by an 
American syndicate, that a line was built from Oroya 
northward along the high plateau of the Andes to that 
mining centre. This railway is ninety miles long, and, 
with the Oroya-Huancayo section, covers a part of the 
Pan-American Railway route, which is planned some day 
to span the entire ten thousand miles from New York to 
Buenos Aires. 

The Central Railway of Peru is considered by experts 
the most wonderful piece of railroad engineering on earth. 
It climbs mountain sides that rise almost straight up out 
of the sea. As the crow flies, the distance from the 
Morococha Pass to the ocean cannot, I should say, be 
fifty miles, yet with all its windings, with its loops, twists, 
and turns, its zigzags and its tunnels, and the other con- 
tortions by which it climbs up the mountains, the rail 
line is only about one hundred miles long. It makes the 
whole distance and the great elevation without the rack 


95 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


and pinion or cog systems used on other mountain rail- 
ways, and with a grade of only about four percent. There 
is not one inch of down grade from the sea to the top, and 
there is no place where a train or a car, if left on the main 
line, would not roll by gravity down to the ocean. As I 
have said, the track is of standard gauge, and the rolling 
stock used is largely of American manufacture. The 
engines burn fuel oil, so that the journey throughout is 
accomplished without dust or cinders. The cars are 
equipped with an elaborate system of brakes, which as- 
sures safety, and in the descent a pilot engine AES goes 
in advance of the train. 

Let me compare this line with some of the other famous 
mountain railroads of the world. The Denver and Rio 
Grande narrow gauge in Colorado reaches a level of 
10,800 feet at Marshall Pass, but in doing so it starts at a 
mile above the sea in the foot-hills of the Rockies, and 
after going some hundreds of miles through the gorges 
it has attained an altitude that is still a mile lower than 
the highest rail on the Central. The highest point of the 
Transandine road, which crosses from Chile to Argentina, 
is not more than two miles above the sea. In Africa, the 
Uganda road, which, beginning at Mombasa on the east 
coast, goes over the divide to Lake Victoria, is several 
thousand feet lower. Between breakfast and dinner the 
Central Railway of Peru takes one from sea level to a 
point higher than the top of any mountain in the United 
States outside Alaska, and if your heart can stand the 
strain and keep off the soroche, or mountain sickness, you 
may ride in comfort all the way up. 

The ranges crossed by the Central Railway form one 
of the mightiest mountain systems on earth. The long 

96 


q 
a 
| 


ON THE WORLD’S HIGHEST RAILROAD 


chain of the Andes walls the entire western side of this 
continent. It begins at Cape Horn and the fiords of the 
Strait of Magellan and stretches northward in a great 
winding rampart for a distance of forty-five hundred miles, 
where it drops down into the Panama Canal. Through- 
out most of its length it has peaks three or four miles in 
height, and its average elevation is more than twelve 
thousand feet, or almost the height of Fujiyama. Mount 
Aconcagua, in Chile, the tallest measured peak in South 
America, is about twenty-three thousand feet high, and 
Mount Misti, in southern Peru, is more than twenty 
thousand feet above the sea. North of here, in Ecuador, 
you will remember that we saw many volcanoes, including 
Chimborazo, more than four miles in height; and to the 
south in Bolivia is a plateau that has an average elevation 
of practically thirteen thousand feet, with no drainage to 
either the Atlantic or the Pacific. These great altitudes 
are the most impressive on account of the steepness of the 
slope of the range that runs along the coast. It begins 
right at the sea, only a narrow strip of sand separat- 
ing it from the ocean, and it jumps, as it were, into the 
clouds. 

The Central Railway follows the valley of the Rimac. 
In places the road is high above the river, clinging to the 
sides of the hills, again it is on the river level, and at one 
point, where the space was not wide enough for both road 
and river, the engineers made a tunnel through the moun- 
tains and turned the stream out of its course in order to 
use its bed for the track. There are sixty-five tunnels 
and sixty-seven bridges, and there are sixteen switchbacks 
located on the sides of mountains that the engines could 
climb in no other way. 


97 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


During the first part of the journey the train took me 
through an irrigated valley. There were fields of alfalfa, 
sugar cane, and other green crops on both sides of the 
track, but the mountains towering above were as arid 
as the Sahara. I remembered the difference between the 
two sides of the Andes, and thought that if I could bore a 
hole through the mountain wall I might come out into the 
valley of the Amazon, where the waters swarm with 
turtles and alligators, and the land is covered with a dense 
jungle of palms, rubber trees, and all sorts of tropical 
fruits. 

Near the ocean on the western or arid side of the Andes 
there is no green at all. The mighty rocks seem absolutely 
bare. By looking closely, however, I found gray cacti 
clinging to the rocks and silver-gray moss covering the 
stones like a mantle. These plants are probably fed by 
the dews. It was not until I reached Tamboraque, at an 
altitude of almost two miles, that I found the first sprin- 
kling of green, which grew fresher and more abundant 
as we ascended. At two and a half miles above sea level 
the rocks were covered with a thin grass, and where | am 
now, at the beginning of the great plateau, there is plenty 
of feed for llamas and sheep During the last three or 
four hours we passed many wild flowers. At one place 
I counted forty varieties, and from where I am sitting 
I can see buttercups and great yellow dandelions. 

As the train climbs the slopes the Rimac Valley narrows 
and widens. In some places one could almost jump from 
one side of it to the other and again it is so wide that it 
would take a half hour to walk across it. All through the 
valley are patches of crops. Near the ocean it is quite 
wide and there one sees cattle and sheep. There are some 


98 


Indian villages of rude thatched huts are perched on the mountain 
sides along the line of the Central Railway. In the narrow valleys every 
foot of land is cultivated or used for grazing a few sheep or cattle. 


Not far from the Viscas bridge, near the crest of the Great Divide, one 
may toss a cork into each of two streams, one of which flows into the 
Pacific, while the other crosses a continent and empties into the Atlantic, 


— 


ON THE WORLD’S HIGHEST RAILROAD 


large fields with mud walls about them, and also haciendas 
with comfortable buildings. All the farms are irrigated. 
As the train went farther into the mountains the fields 
grew smaller and smaller; some were terraces where the 
cultivated strips were often only three or four feet wide. 
Nevertheless, these little farms extend far up the moun- 
tains, which are so steep that a workman who fell out of a 
field the other day rolled down fifty feet before he could 
stop himself. Even higher than these cultivated patches 
are the marks of other terraces that were used by the 
Incas, who tilled a hundred acres where the modern 
Peruvians till one. 

All the way from the ocean to the top of the Andes 
I passed towns and villages. Twenty-five miles from 
Lima, at an altitude of three thousand feet, I stopped 
at Chosica, a summer resort, where a score of huge chola 
women, clad in short skirts and shawls and white Panama 
hats, were on the station platform, selling oranges, toma- 
toes, peaches, watermelons, and strawberries. I bought 
SIX Oranges at three cents apiece, and paid a nickel for an 
alligator pear that weighed a pound. 

Higher still, we came to the Indian towns. There all 
the houses were of one story, most of them being rude 
stone huts with rough tiled roofs. The people do not 
build their homes in the fields, where every foot of land is 
needed for crops. Instead, they huddle together out on 
the edges of the valleys or on the rocky places close to 
rivers. They go out to work on the terraces and patches 
of soil, and now and then I saw them driving over the 
trails their llamas loaded with burdens. Here they were 
herding sheep while standing up and spinning wool, and 
there they were bent double in digging the soil. These 

99 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


Indians are short and copper-coloured, and to me they 
looked worked to death. 

The train stopped at Matucana for dinner. There we 
were served with plates of soup containing chunks of meat 
as big as my fist and a half-dozen vegetables all stewed 
together. We had also beefsteak and eggs and red straw- 
berries fresh from the vines. 

Here and there along the route were mining towns. 
Much of the ore, which contains silver and copper, is 
brought in on llamas, and I saw hundreds of those little 
camel-like beasts trotting along with their heavy loads. 

Thirteen thousand six hundred feet above the sea is 
Casapalca, and the climb from there to Ticlio is more than 
two thousand feet. Just below Ticlio is the Galera 
tunnel, which goes through Mount Meiggs to the farther 
slope. From here one can throw chips into waters that 
flow to both oceans. | knew of this, and had prepared two 
bottles, tightly corked, with messages in them. I put 
one bottle in each stream and set them adrift. One 
floated away down the eastern side of the Andes. It may 
reach the Ucayali, one of the tributaries of the Amazon, 
and go on its long voyage of three or four thousand miles 
into the salt waters of the Atlantic. The other bobbed 
along rapidly toward the Pacific. It will soon reach the 
Rimac River, and if it escapes the rocks it will be at 
Callao in something less than a hundred-mile journey. 

From Ticlio it is only a short run to Oroya, where the 
main line of the railway turns south to Huancayo, and 
travellers going on eastward must continue their journey 
by horse or muleback. An automobile road runs from 
Oroya to the towns of Tarma and Merced, and from there 
a trail drops down into the tropical valleys where there are 

100 


— : i 


ON THE WORLD’S HIGHEST RAILROAD 


large coffee and sugar plantations. Between Tarma and 
Merced the highway is strictly a “one-way” road. It is 
cut out of the sides of the mountains and is so narrow that 
two vehicles cannot pass; hence travel is eastbound one 
day and westbound the next. 

Oroya is not a great distance from the tributaries of the 
Amazon River, and the day will probably come when this 
road will form a part of a railway route across South 
America. It has been estimated that the road could be 
extended to the navigable Amazon system for something 
like fifteen or twenty million dollars. Some claim that 
the cost of pulling trains over the great ranges will make 
this route impracticable for the movement of heavy goods 
over the Andes. 

There is no doubt, however, that East Andean Peru will 
eventually have railway connection with the Pacific. 
There are several passes much lower than that at Ticlio, 
and there is one where the altitude is below that of Mexico 
City. It can be reached by an extension from one of the 
valleys of northern Peru, and the road built thence to the 
Amazon. The distance from the Pacific by this route 
would be only four hundred miles, or less than the trip 
from Boston to Baltimore. Another plan is to extend 
the Cerro de Pasco line to the Ucayali River, a distance 
of a little more than two hundred miles. I have already 
spoken of the possible extension of the railroads in Ecua- 
dor to the Amazon Valley, and it will be readily seen that 
if any of these projects are carried out, the vast region of 
the eastern Andes will some time be accessible to us 
through the Panama Canal. 

In addition to one or more lines connecting the west 
coast with the navigable rivers of eastern Peru, the railway 

10! 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


development plans formulated by the government include 
two longitudinal railways. One of them is to follow the 
line of the coast, through the desert and the oases, and the 
other to be high up on the plateau, running northward 
from Cerro de Pasco and southward to meet the railway 
that now reaches Cuzco from Arequipa. Much of the 
government railway thus far constructed has been financed 
by the income from the tobacco tax. | 

Almost all of trans-Andean Peru lies within five hundred 
miles of the Pacific Ocean. When the existing railroads 
are extended as planned it can be reached from New York 
in fifteen days. As it is now, it takes three weeks by ocean 
and river steamer to get to Iquitos, the port for eastern 
Peru, near the headwaters of the Amazon. 

Iquitos is the capital of the great Peruvian province of 
Loreto, which occupies most of Peru east of the Andes. 
It is the commercial headquarters of the Putumayo rubber 
region. Although more than twenty-three hundred miles 
inland from the Atlantic, it is one of the chief rubber ports 
of the world, and exports thousands of tons every year. 
The Amazon here is three miles wide, and at the half-mil- 
lion dollar floating wharf of Iquitos may be seen many 
ocean-going vessels as well as smaller river craft of all 
kinds. Next to rubber, the chief export is ivory nuts, 
which, as in Ecuador, are brought in on rafts and small 
boats over the network of streams. Many cedar logs also 
are shipped from here, to be made into pencils and chests 
and boxes in the United States. 

Iquitos is a city of fifteen thousand people, and has 
modern business buildings, houses of brick and concrete, 
and four public schools. There is a comfortable three- 
story hotel that is among the best in Peru, and although 

102 


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From three things the Indian woman is virtually inseparable 
her shawl, and her baby. She is equally attached to her skirts, which she 
never changes, simply putting on new ones over the old as fast as she can 
acquire them. 


her hat, 


ON THE WORLD’S HIGHEST RAILROAD 


the city is but a few degrees from the Equator, the water 
and sanitation systems make it comparatively healthful 
for foreigners. 

Trans-Andean, or Amazonian Peru, as it might be 
called, has an area equal to fifty states the size of Massa- 
chusetts or ten as big as Ohio or Kentucky, and the region 
has proportionately more good land than any of those 
states. Although near the Equator, it has a climate that 
varies from the temperate to the tropical. Coffee and 
cacao can be grown in the mountains, while the lowlands 
produce rubber, and there are vast tracts where sugar cane, 
tobacco, and cotton can be raised. The country is also 
rich in minerals, and much of the gold of the Incas came 
from there. | 


103 


CHAPTER chi 
CERRO DE PASCO 


WANT to give you some pictures of Cerro de Pasco, 

the highest mining town of the world. It is situated 

here on the top of the Andes on the very roof of South 

America, at an altitude of fourteen thousand two 
hundred feet above the sea. It is three or four thousand 
feet above Leadville, and almost twice as high as Mexico 
City. It is more than twelve hundred miles south of the 
Panama Canal and something like three thousand miles 
from the Strait of Magellan. 

I came here from Oroya over the line built by the Cerro 
de Pasco Copper Corporation, which owns the great 
mines. The rails are made of American steel and the 
ties are of Oregon pine. The track is as smooth as that 
of the New York Central from Buffalo to Albany, and the 
comfortable cars were built in the United States. The 
bridges came from the American Bridge Company at 
Pittsburgh, and the locomotives are Baldwins or Rogers. 
The engineers and the conductors on the road are Ameri- 
cans, but the firemen and the labourers are Indians and 
cholos, that is, people of mixed Spanish and Quichua blood. 
I am told that the road paid for itself within the first two 
years after building, and that its traffic steadily grows. 

Cerro de Pasco lies in a valley between two mighty 
ranges of snow-capped mountains rich in minerals. It is 
just about as far south of the Equator as Panama is north 

104 


eS _ Se ae eS 


CERRO DE PASCO 


of it, but at this altitude of almost three miles the climate 
is like that of southern Canada. There are frequent snow- 
storms in the winter, when at night the thermometer goes 
down almost to zero. In the summer it rains in the 
afternoons, but the mornings are clear, and for about 
six months of the year the sun shines all the day through. 

The town has about fifteen thousand cholo and Indian 
inhabitants, most of whom live in one-story houses made 
of plastered adobe, and a small number of whites. 
The buildings are in blocks, walling the streets, and 
are painted in bright colours. One house may be a 
brilliant green, the next blue, and the next red or 
golden yellow or white. As I walked through the town, 
I observed that the woodwork was freshly painted, and 
the American mining official who was with me told me 
that the law requires that the street front of every house 
must be painted once every two years. If it is not, 
the owner is fined. He said that the painting time had 
Just passed, and therefore the city looked fresh. 

The houses have roofs of tile or galvanized iron that 
extend out over the sidewalks. There are no eaves- 
troughs, and when it rains the water usually pours off the 
roofs down the back of one’s neck. The sidewalks are 
narrow, and the principal roadways are paved with 
cobbles with a gutter of slabs about ten inches wide and 
six inches deep running through the middle of the street. 
The streets all slope to the centre, and the sewage runs 
off through this gutter. 

The most important buildings of Cerro de Pasco face 
upon a plaza. As I went through it I saw about one 
hundred and fifty llamas resting on the stones. Each 
animal had a package of ore strapped to his back. As I 

105 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


looked, some of the llamas got up. They rest much as 
camels do, putting their knees under them and lying flat 
on their bellies. Many of them were chewing their 
cuds, and I could see their jaws moving back and forth, 
showing their teeth. Some of the llamas were white, 
others brown, and some were spotted like a calico pony, 
with black, brown, yellow, and white. These beasts of 
burden are as observing as a fox terrier, and continually 
turn their heads this way and that for every new thing in 
sight. Their wool looks like that of the Angora goat, but 
is coarser. It is used chiefly by the natives, and is not 
exported. | 

Strolling up the main street, I passed the principal stores, 
which are filled with goods from Europe and the United 
States. I saw canned fruits from California, salmon 
from Oregon, cotton cloths from Massachusetts, and 
sewing machines of well-known American makes. There 
were also many articles of native manufacture, such as 
ponchos made from the hair of llamas and sheep, rude 
sandals used by the Indians, and shoes so clumsy that 
they could not have come from Massachusetts. Over 
some of the doors | noticed tassels and fringes of tissue 
paper, which I was told were the signs of saloons selling 
chicha, the native drink. 

The crowds in the streets were typical of highland 
Peru. There were Peruvians of the upper classes dressed 
as we are, scores of cholos, and Indian men and women who 
had driven their llamas in from the country loaded with 
vegetables and other native merchandise. There were 
many cargadores, or porters, with great loads on their 
backs, and Indian women and girls wearing huge hats 
on their heads, shawls around their shoulders, and volumi- 

106 


CERRO DE PASCO 


nous skirts. I am told that neither the chola nor the 
Indian woman ever changes her skirt. She puts one on 
and keeps it there until it is worn out. As each grows 
thinner, she adds another, until at last she reaches 
enormous dimensions. She wears her shawl and hat in- 
doors and out, and it is difficult to persuade a servant 
girl to remove either while at her work. 

The Indian men and boys wear coarse suits of clothes 
that are made in the same sizes for children and grown-ups. 
They have ponchos and hats but no shoes; some wear 
sandals but many are barefooted. The streets swarm 
with children, and nearly every woman and girl has a 
child tied to her back. Sometimes the baby is on the 
outside of a burden, and it bobs up and down as the 
mother carries the heavy load over the road. She bends 
half double as she goes along at a sort of dog-trot. 

Few of the women are handsome, and they all look 
dirty and rather repulsive. They start carrying burdens 
while they are children, and I see girls no taller than my 
waist with babies strapped to their backs. The men 
carry enormous weights up hill and down. Their chief 
strength is in their backs, and they have to get under a 
load to carry it. At one place I saw eight of them moving 
a piano. They did not raise it with their hands, but tied 
ropes to its legs and then pulled on the ropes over their 
shoulders until they were able to lift the instrument to 
their backs. After that they trotted on up the hill. 

The foreign colony of Cerro de Pasco is quite as in- 
teresting as the native. Here, more than three thousand 
miles south of the United States and almost three miles 
above the sea, is an American industrial centre. I call 
it American because it is run by American money; but, 

107 


LANDS OF THE ANDES‘ AND THE’ DESERT 


in fact, the salaried employees come from all over the world. 
There are English, Australians, Germans, Austrians, 
Irish, and Danes. There are graduates of Massachusetts 
“Tech,” of McGill in Canada, and of the leading uni- 
versities of Europe—in short, the experts of a half-dozen 
different nations. Many of them have their families with 
them, and | have yet to meet a man or a woman who is 
not pleased with the conditions here. The Cerro de Pasco 
Copper Corporation does everything it can to make life 
agreeable, and the people live almost as well as at home. 

Hotels with bathrooms and all modern conveniences 
have been put up for the bachelors. The married em- 
ployees have comfortable stone cottages and can buy 
many of their supplies at the company store. There are 
club-houses with libraries and reading rooms supplied with 
the latest magazines and papers, and also bowling alleys, 
billiard tables, and rooms for entertainments and dances. 
There are tennis courts and baseball grounds where the 
smelter employees sometimes play a game with a team 
from the mines. However, the air is so thin that baseball 
is indulged in only moderately, and tennis, for newcomers 
at least, is always played in doubles. 

The foreign colony publishes a creditable monthly 
magazine, the Inca Chronicle, which has the distinction 
of being printed nearer Heaven than any other periodical 
onearth. There is a hospital here, with expert physicians 
and trained nurses, and when the men are sick they are 
well cared for or are sent ‘‘down the hill.”” The terms 
“down the hill” and “up the hill” are used here in referring 
to the journey to or from the sea-coast. 

Most of the Americans and other foreigners—men, wo- 
men, and children—seem in good health. There are, 

108 


CERRO DE PASCO 


however, some who cannot stand the thinness of the air 
at this altitude, and many are afflicted with pneumonia 
and have to be sent back post haste on special trains. 
I know of employees who have come up three or four 
different times, and, going down sick each time, have at 
last had to give up and return to the States. On the 
other hand, | have just been told of one Englishman who 
had lived at this high altitude continuously for twenty- 
three years. At the end of that time he won a lottery 
prize of five thousand dollars, took a long leave of absence, 
and went down to Lima intending to live in grand style 
as long as his funds lasted. He had been so many years 
in a rarefied atmosphere, however, that he could not stand 
the low altitude of the capital, and was obliged to return 
to Cerro de Pasco before he had time to get well started on 
spending his money. 

The soroche, or mountain sickness, seems to attack 
everyone here when he first reaches an altitude of two 
miles or more above the sea. Every foreigner I have met 
has been more or less afflicted with it, although with some 
it merely means a slight difficulty in breathing. Asa rule, 
most people recover from it quickly, although it returns at 
any over-exertion or imprudence. The first symptoms 
of the illness are nausea and pains in the head. Then 
comes vertigo and dimness of sight and hearing. Fainting 
fits may follow, and the blood may flow from one’s eyes, 
nose, and lips. Those who have weak lungs are liable 
to have hemorrhages, and people with weak hearts be- 
come unconscious. Soroche sometimes even causes death. 

I had an attack of soroche during my first trip to South 
America. As I came here yesterday over the Central 
Railway, I could feel the air growing rarer. At ten 


109 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


thousand feet my breath was so short I could not whistle, 
and much of my dictation at fifteen thousand feet was 
done in a whisper. After we passed the two-mile level 
I found myself weighing each sentence to see whether 
it was worth the effort required to utter it. At the 
stations I walked very slowly, and when the train started 
unexpectedly at Casapalca and I had to run to get on, 
I panted for five minutes before I recovered. The blood 
pounded in my ears and the top of my head felt as though 
it were being pried up with a crowbar. 

In the cars behind me were men and women holding 
smelling bottles at their noses, and one Peruvian had a 
bottle at his nose and a gun in his bag. Before I came 
out of the train he told me he had two cures for the 
soroche. ‘‘One is this smelling bottle,”’ he said, and asked 
me to try it. 

“But will it do the business?”’ said I. 

“T don’t know,” he replied, “but if not, | have a sure cure 
here,’ and he opened his bag and showed me the revolver. 

The soroche attacks different individuals in different 
ways. My secretary had a slight touch of it, but this soon 
passed off and he thought he was proof against further 
trouble. He walked six miles that day, and then spent an 
hour in the bowling alleys at the club. At the same time 
he ate with his usual zest, and the result is that he has 
now a well-developed case of soroche. He is the colour 
of cheese, he cannot take three steps without resting, and 
he “‘loathes all manner of meat.’”’ A man who came up on 
the train with me says that his head began to ache during 
the night and his pulse jumped to one hundred and 
twenty. A young mining engineer who came last week to 
the Morococha copper property was met at the depot 

110 


Cerro de Pasco was an important mining town when Manhattan Island 
was mostly wilderness, but to-day it lives on the payroll of a great Amer- 
ican corporation housed in a skyscraper of lower New York. 


Some of the smaller mines of Cerro de Pasco are still worked by In- 
dians. These are mere holes in the ground, unequipped with machinery, 
out of which men and boys carry the ore in sacks on their backs. 


CERRO DE PASCO 


with horses and rode at a gallop to the mines. This 
brought on such a severe attack that he was obliged to go 
back to Lima and spend a while on the coast. When he 
comes up again he will stop at Matucana, which has an 
altitude of eight thousand feet, and then make the re- 
mainder of the journey by easy stages. 

I have talked with the doctors here as to the cause of 
soroche. They say it comes from the thinness of the air. 
One’s system is accustomed to a certain percentage of 
oxygen with each breath he takes. You breathe at the 
same rate here as at the coast, but you get less oxygen, 
and as a result your blood becomes impure and there is a 
loading up of waste matter throughout the body, causing 
auto-intoxication, and if it continues long enough you 
have soroche. 

The atmospheric pressure here is much less than at the 
seacoast. At Lima it is about fifteen pounds to the 
square inch, and here it is less than nine pounds. Conse- 
quently, it takes six minutes to soft-boil an egg, and you 
may boil beans all day and not have them cooked through, 
for in this atmosphere water passes off into vapour at a 
lower temperature than it does near sea level. 

Many of the wiseacres, when they first come to the 
mountains, disregard what the doctors say. They do 
not take the ordinary precautions, and the result is 
usually a serious case of soroche, or even pneumonia. The 
other day a visiting physician was told he must not go out 
without his coat. He replied that his business was medi- 
cine and he knew how to take care of himself. He then 
straightway trotted about in the rain. He was stricken 
down with pneumonia, and within four days he was 
on his way back to the coast in a coffin, 

Il 


CHAPTER XIII 
AMERICAN INDUSTRY IN THE HEART OF PERU 


HE story of the mines of Cerro de Pasco began 

about three centuries ago. In the year 1630 an 

Indian shepherd who had strayed far from his hut 

with his llamas and sheep was obliged to camp out 
overnight. When he awoke the next morning he found 
the rocks under the ashes of his campfire specked with 
globules of silver that had been melted by the heat. 
That discovery led to the opening of mines by the Span- 
iards, who drove the Indian peons into the workings and 
flogged them when the output lagged behind. Later 
the mines passed into the possession of cholos. At one 
time, when the price of silver was at its highest, the de- 
posits were exploited by capitalists who paid the miners 
something like forty cents a day for twelve hours’ work, 
with an ounce of coca leaves as an added inducement to 
keep them on the job. 

Although the Cerro de Pasco mines produced an average 
of a million and a half ounces of silver a year from the 
time of their discovery until 1900, their greatest value 
to-day is in their copper. As the workings grew deeper, 
the ore yielded more and more of that metal and less of 
silver. Near the surface it often assayed one hundred 
ounces of silver to the ton, but at the depth of the present 
operations the silver content is less than ten ounces. 
Nevertheless, Cerro de Pasco is still one of the two most 

112 


; 
: 
i 


AMERICAN INDUSTRY IN PERU 


important silver districts of Peru, and Peru ranks third 
among the silver-producing countries of the world. Only 
the United States and Mexico surpass it. 

Although the most valuable deposits here are owned by 
the Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation, small holdings 
are still worked by the Indians for both silver and copper. 
The natives dig out the best ore with picks and bring it to 
the surface on their backs, in rawhide sacks, one man 
carrying from sixty to eighty pounds at a time. Some of 
it is brought up on ladders from a depth of two hundred 
feet or more. 

The ground under Cerro de Pasco is honeycombed with 
the diggings out of which the ore has been taken for genera- 
tions. Here and there on the surface are piles of ore, 
and everywhere are holes leading down into the native 
mines. Some of them are so close to the houses that | 
wonder that the babies toddling about do not fall in. 
In places the ground has sunk, and as I rode through the 
town I saw great pits, large enough to swallow the Vati- 
can at Rome or our National Capitol at Washington. 
If the houses were built of heavier materials it is probable 
that the whole town would drop down into the excavations 
beneath it. 

It was the great copper value of the ore that first at- 
tracted the attention of American capitalists to Cerro de 
Pasco about a generation ago. A syndicate including such 
men as J. B. Haggin, Henry C. Frick, the Vanderbilts, 
the Hearst estate, and others, was formed to buy the most 
valuable mines. No expense was spared in developing 
the properties, the company spending tens of millions of 
dollars to put them on a paying basis. This was ac- 
complished in a few years, and their total mineral pro- 


113 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


duction now reaches an annual value of more than forty 
million dollars. { 

The extent of the present operations of the Cerro de 
Pasco Copper Corporation is almost inconceivable. Here 
on the top of the Andes the company has built up one of 
the greatest copper mining and smelting industries in the 
world. I have already described its railway from Oroya 
to Cerro de Pasco. It has also built a railway that runs 
about twenty-five miles north of Cerro de Pasco to the coal 
mines that supply the fuel for smelting the ore. At 
Oroya it has a twenty-thousand-horse-power hydro- 
electric plant that furnishes the power for its various 
properties, and a new smelter that surpasses any on the 
South American continent. At La Fundici6én, the site 
of its old smelter, it operates enormous ovens for making 
the coke used in smelting, and it has its own quarries of 
limestone. It owns also several other copper mines at 
Morococha, which is reached by a branch line from the 
Peruvian Central. 

The company employs from six to eight thousand In- 
dians and cholos in the mines and the smelter. As a rule 
they make good workmen. They are divided into two 
eight-hour shifts, so arranged that the second stops at two 
o'clock in the morning, thus enabling all the men to sleep 
a part of the night. 

The prosperity of Cerro de Pasco, and, indeed, of this 
whole mining region, is dependent largely upon American 
capital. The corporation spends thousands of dollars 
a month in wages. The ores shipped to Callao and the 
supplies for the mines furnish the bulk of the freight 
business of the Central Railway. The company has great 
warehouses that stock everything in the line of mining 


114 


EEE 


AMERICAN INDUSTRY IN PERU 


and smelting machinery, as well as all sorts of supplies 
for its employees, Near one of the shafts I saw a 
lumber yard stacked high with Oregon pine, and was 
told that it was cheaper to bring the timber over its long 
ocean trip and then carry it up the Andes by railroad than 
to get the eucalyptus that grows in eastern Peru not more 
than two hundred miles from the smelter, but far from 
any railway. 

It is doubtful whether there is any other place in the 
world where the copper deposits are of such enormous 
extent as here at Cerro de Pasco. 

“ You might compare the formations to your hand,” said 
one of the superintendents in describing them to me. 
“Let the palm represent the great central mass of copper 
and your fingers the veins that extend out from it. On 
one of the veins alone there is enough ore in sight to keep 
us busy for ten years or more, and it is my opinion that 
we have barely scratched the surface of the copper. In 
the United States we consider a mine a good one if it will 
yield one or two per cent. of copper to the ton. Here we 
throw the ore away if it does not assay two per cent. 
Our average is from eight to fourteen per cent. and we 
have taken out some rock that has yielded forty per cent. 
to the ton.”’ 

On my visit to the mines I dropped down to the four- 
hundred-foot level and then rode through the narrow 
tunnels on one of the electric trains that carry the ore to 
the shaft. There are five shafts going down into the 
earth, one of them eight hundred feet deep. Tests have 
been made showing that the copper extends even below 
that level. There are about forty miles of tunnels, most 
of them so small that I could hardly stand upright in 


115 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


them, while from the centre of the track I could easily 
reach the sides of the walls. Some of them are reenforced 
with timber, but nearly everywhere the excavating is so 
expertly done that the rock needs no additional support. 
| As we went from chamber to chamber, we stopped at 
times to watch the miners operating compressed air 
drills and taking out the ore blasted loose from the rock 
walls. Everywhere I was impressed by the efficient 
methods employed, and I was particularly interested in 
the way the value of ore specimens was determined with- 
out a chemical assay. This is done by holding the ore 
to the flame of an ordinary tallow candle. The copper 
gives a green colour to the flame, by the intensity of which 
the experts can tell just about the percentage of metal the 
ore contains. The assistant manager made such a test 
for me, which showed that the sample averaged about 
twelve per cent. copper. In addition, the ore contains 
enough silver and gold practically to pay the cost of min- 
ing, making the value of the copper almost clear profit. 
Until a few years ago the ore was sent to the smelter at 
La Fundicién, not far from Cerro de Pasco. Before the 
erection of that plant, no smelter had ever been built 
at more than fourteen thousand feet above the sea, and 
at first the experts said that furnaces could not be operated 
at that altitude. They claimed that the thinness of the 
air would make it almost impossible to get the amount of 
oxygen needed for the blasts. Nevertheless, the syndi- 
cate determined to try the experiment. The furnaces 
were installed by the best engineers obtainable, but 
still they would not work, and one mining expert after 
another came here, threw up his hands in despair, and left. 
For a time it looked as though this great mining venture, 
116 


AMERICAN INDUSTRY IN PERU 


which had already cost millions of dollars, would fail. 
At last came an engineer from Mexico, who experimented 
with the blasts until he finally was able to get satisfactory 
results. The gigantic smelter was then completed and 
successfully operated until it was abandoned in 1922. 

In the meantime, a new and much larger smelter had 
been built at Oroya at a cost of fifteen million dollars. The 
altitude of that town is two thousand feet lower than that 
of La Fundicién, and the heavier atmosphere makes it 
possible to operate the blast furnaces and converters with 
less difficulty. The Oroya smelter also has the advantage 
of being nearer to the company’s Morococha mines and to 
Callao, the chief port of the country. 

The white employees of thesmelter live in the company’s 
model village of Chulic, which has been built far enough 
away to be free from the sulphur fumes. As in Cerro de 
Pasco, there are modern club houses for single men, and a 
hospital in charge of American physicians and nurses, 
The guest house, or hotel, is unique in this part of the 
world. It has an up-to-date garage, an attractive patio, 
a glass-covered pergola, and modern bathrooms. . Even 
the servants’ quarters are equipped with showers, and 
though the Quichuas as a race are notoriously lax in the 
matter of personal cleanliness, the ones employed here find 
themselves looking for new jobs if they do not make fre- 
quent use of their bathing facilities. Homes of adobe or 
brick are furnished to the Indian employees, a low rent 
being charged chiefly to keep the natives from thinking 
the houses belong to them. 

I wish | could take you through this great monument of 
American industry and show you the stream of ore that 
comes in over the railway and is fed to the fiery furnaces 


117 


The ancient patio process of treating ore is still in use to some extent. 
By this method, masses of ore are wetted down with water, and then 


trodden by horses or mules driven round and round in the circular pits, 
or patios. 


AMERICAN INDUSTRY IN PERU 


Incas and later by the Spaniards. The old tunnels are 
now being cleaned out and re-worked, and new workings 
have been begun at still lower levels. 

Not far from La Fundicién are great deposits of vana- 
dium owned also by an American corporation. One of 
the most valuable mines formerly belonged to an Italian, 
who later invested his wealth in vast haciendas and fine 
breeds of stock. Peru now furnishes seventy per cent. 
of the world’s supply of vanadium. 


119 


CHAPTER XIV 
BY ROLLER COASTER DOWN THE ANDES 


O-DAY I am again near sea level, and thankful 

to be safely down from the land of the skies. 

Yesterday I was on the roof of South America; 

now I am back at Lima, only a step from the 
ocean. The return trip furnished enough thrills to last 
me a life-time, and it seems almost a miracle that | am 
here to describe it. 

Imagine, if you can, coasting down the side of the Andes 
on the steepest railroad in the world. Think of being 
now blinded in a blizzard and now pelted with hailstones 
driven into your face with the force of a gale. Sometimes 
the storm was so thick I could not see a stone’s throw 
ahead ; again, we were coasting along under blue skies and 
bright sunshine. One moment we hung to the edge of a 
precipice; the next we were flying over spider-web bridges 
of steel that spanned frightful chasms. We whirled about 
curves in the midnight blackness of mountain tunnels 
and burst again into the light of day only to shudder at 
the vast depths below. 

All this can give you but a faint idea of my descent from 
the glacial snows of the Peruvian peaks, three miles high 
in the air. It was a journey filled with dangers that were 
terrifyingly real, and before I started, where the condi- 
tions seemed ideal, I was required to sign a paper swearing 
that my heirs would claim no damages in case I was 

120 


BY ROLLER COASTER DOWN THE ANDES 


killed. An hour later it seemed to me that the railroad 
authorities were more sensible to require such a protec- 
tion than I was to travel in such fashion. 

The trip was made on the gravity car of the general 
manager of the Central Railway of Peru. It was merely a 
low platform mounted on wheels about two feet high. It 
had no motive power, and was controlled only by two 
brakes, one on each side at the front. On the platform 
was a seat wide enough for three persons, and as we took 
our places I sat in the middle, with my stenographer at 
my left and one of the officials of the operating depart- 
ment of the railway at my right. The brakes were manned 
by a cholo. We had to run upon schedule time, for we 
were on a single-track road and would have to pass both 
east- and west-bound trains on the way. We were to get 
our orders from the telegraph operators at the principal 
stations. 

We started at Ticlio, amid the glaciers at the very top 
of the pass, and we could see clearly the great masses of 
ice on the mountain-sides. Just above us was Mount 
Meiggs, and all around were mighty peaks. The sun 
was shining, there were no clouds, and | was told that we 
should have no trouble in controlling the car, as the only 
danger comes from rain or snow, which makes it difficult 
for the wheels to hold to the rails. 

We let go the brakes and fairly shot down the track. 
We had hardly left Ticlio, however, before the sky changed 
and the winds began to blow up the gorges. The air grew 
cold, and within five minutes we were in the midst of a 
snowstorm. A moment later the snow turned to hail. 
The stones were as big as peas, and they bounced like 
rubber as they fell. With the hail came thunder and 

121 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


flashes of lightning. In the rare air our ears fairly 
cracked with the sound, and the lightning made more 
visible the dangers about us. 

As we went on, the rails became white and the rocks 
were hidden in snow. Our car was soon half full of hail, 
and the tracks became more and more slippery. Then 
the wind increased to a gale, and my stenographer, who 
was taking his notes on wet paper, notwithstanding the 
storm, cried out that his hat had blown off. Very fool- 
ishly, we stopped the car and sent the cholo brakeman back 
up the track. At this time we were only ten minutes 
ahead of a train that was following us. We waited five 
minutes, but the cholo did not return. Then my secretary 
went back and recovered his hat about two hundred yards 
from the car on the edge of a four-hundred-foot cliff. 
The cholo had disappeared. We waited for him two 
minutes longer, and then, hearing the whistle of the down- 
coming train, we knew we should have to go on and 
manage the car ourselves. My companions manned the 
brakes on either side, and we began again to coast down 
through the storm. I learned afterward that no trace 
was ever found of the brakeman, and that he must have 
fallen over the cliff in the blinding snowstorm. 

The cold was piercing.’ The wind went through our 
clothing and the great hailstones cut our faces. At times, 
when the clouds were the blackest, we could see only a 
few feet ahead, but could look down the sides of the cliff 
to which the track clings and see the snow-clad walls far 
below us. Now we would be flying into tunnels, which 
were the safest places, for there the rails were dry and 
the wheels did not slip when the brakes were put on. 
Indeed, we almost prayed for the tunnels, and were glad 

122 


BY ROLLER COASTER DOWN THE ANDES 


when we dashed out of the blinding sleet into the dark- 
ness. 

Suddenly we saw ahead two trains standing on a siding 
at one of the switchbacks. They were waiting for us, 
and the engineers said another train coming up must pass 
before we could go on. By that time we were chilled to 
the bone, and our faces were blue with the sleet and the 
cold. We climbed out of our car and into the cab of one 
of the oil-burning engines. The heat of the boiler soon 
thawed us out, and within a short time dried our clothes, 
which had been wet by the snow. 

We were still in the storm when we left the switchback. 
The rails were covered with sleet and we could not be sure 
of the track. At one place we passed a gang of labourers 
working on the road-bed, and at another time narrowly 
missed a drove of llamas crossing the track. As they saw 
us rushing toward them, the animals began to run, leaping 
along in kangaroo jumps, with their Indian drivers trotting 
behind. At every hamlet along the way the dogs ran out 
and barked at the car and snapped at us as we flew by. 
The danger was that a dog might get in front of the car 
and throw it off the track and down the sides of the moun- 
tain. When it rains in the Andes, masses of earth and 
rock fall down upon the track, but we were going too fast, 
and the storm was too thick, to try to watch for slides. 

By and by we passed Casapalca, where we dropped down 
out of the storm. The sun came out again, the sky was 
blue, and we could see for miles. The track dried, and 
we coasted along at great speed through some of the most 
wonderful scenery on earth. Now we rode for miles be- 
tween walls of rock that extended upward for thousands 
of feet, and now hung over gorges at the bottom of which, 

123 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


a thousand feet below, rushed the foaming Rimac. Now 
we entered a tunnel high up on the side of a cliff, and, 
looking down, saw another tunnel almost directly below 
us. We rushed out of one tunnel into the Infernillo, 
where a slender bridge of iron joins two great walls of 
rock. Above us through the narrow slit of the cafion was 
the blue sky of Heaven, and below was the gorge that 
these people call the Little Hell. The bridge there spans 
a chasm two thousand feet deep, and we trembled at the 
thought that there might be a train in the tunnel beyond. 

The whole of this wonderful railroad seems blasted out 
of the sides of the mountains. Here it hangs to the cliffs, 
there it bores through the rocks, and again it zigzags back 
and forth in great loops. Some of the tunnels are so close 
together that they made me think of the road between 
Monte Carlo and Nice, a trip on which has been described 
as ‘‘riding through a flute and looking out of the holes.” 

I wish I could show you the formations of the Andes. 
They surpass in some of their wonders the Alps and the 
Rockies, and I have seen nothing like them in the Hima- 
layas. We have a little patch of four hundred acres in 
Colorado in the foot-hills of the Rockies that we call the 
Garden of the Gods. Not far from Cerro de Pasco, in the 
heart of the Andes near the railway from Oroya, is a simi- 
lar garden with hundreds of weird formations for every 
one in Colorado. It lies at an altitude five hundred feet 
higher than the top of Pike’s Peak, and is looked down 
upon by mountain peaks from seventeen to twenty thou- 
sand feet high. It is twenty miles long, and between three 
and five miles wide, and its area is completely covered with 
natural arches, walls, temples, and rocks of all shapes and 
sizes. 


124 


BY ROLLER COASTER DOWN THE ANDES 


One of these rocks, called the King, is a gigantic figure 
as tall as a house. Its head is poised upon a neck not 
more than three feet in diameter but so long that it towers 
high above all its surroundings. Another rock is known as 
the Turtle; it is a gigantic block shaped like a tortoise, 
and the natives believe that it upholds the world. A third 
looks like a great steamboat perched on a pedestal, and a 
fourth is a mighty tower. In this same region is the 
Rock Forest, consisting of hundreds of acres of columns 
standing out on the plain. At a distance they look like a 
great wood that has been burned over. 

And then there are castles, palaces, and fortifications. 
With a little imagination you can find almost any kind of 
architecture, or the model of any great structure. In 
South Africa I have seen Table Rock, which hangs over 
the harbour at Cape Town. There are table rocks of 
marble here in the Andes that look as though they had 
been cut by a sculptor. There are formations like those 
of the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland, although they are not 
of hexagonal shape, and in riding through the mountains 
| have seen castles of the purest white marble, which in 
their grandeur excel the ruins of those mighty works of 
man on the Rhine. 

These mountains have all the colours of the Grand 
Cafion of the Colorado. Now the rocks are blazing white, 
and now they remind one of the rusted marbles of the 
Parthenon at Athens. Here they are brown, farther on 
they are blue, red, or drab. Drab is the predominant 
colour near the sea, where much of the formation is 
limestone. Now the mountains are ragged and rough, 
and rise in ruined cities. I saw some the colour of old 
red sandstone that made me think of the fortifications 

125 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


at Delhi in India. I saw others that were spired like 
the cathedrals of Cologne and Milan. These spires are 
as white as Carrara marble, and they glisten like snow 
under the sun. Other rocks are dome-shaped, and still 
others extend in great waves, showing the folds in the 
earth and forming curving walls of wonderful beauty. 


126 


At El Infernillo, “the Little Hell,’ the railroad dives into a tunnel 
bored through the towering rock, emerges upon a bridge spanning a chasm 
two thousand feet deep, and then plunges into another black hole in the 
mountain side. 


The famous Garden of the Gods of Colorado is but a dooryard filled 
with pebbles compared with the vast and weird formations of the Rock 
Forest of the Andes. 


CHAPTER XV 
AREQUIPA, CITY OF THE STARS 


HAVE now come to Arequipa, the metropolis of 

southern Peru. It is situated one hundred miles in- 

land from Mollendo, which ranks next to Callao as a 

commercial port. Nevertheless, it has such a poor 
harbour that ships have to anchor far out from the shore, 
and the swell is worse than that at Jaffa, which tossed 
Jonah’s ship so that the sailors threw him out to the 
whale. The Mollendo harbour is partially protected by a 
small breakwater, but the ocean is often so rough that 
passengers have to be lifted by steam cranes out of the 
small boats that bring them to the dock from the steamer, 
and goods have to be put on and off the boats in the same 
way. The sea was tamer than usual when I came into 
port, but my boat rose and fell eight or ten feet with each 
wave, and | had to make a flying leap from one of the 
seats to the steps that led to the custom house. There 
has been some talk of transferring the port for Arequipa 
from Mollendo to Matarani, eight miles to the north, 
which has a good harbour. Such a move would also 
shorten the railway route over the mountains. 

I wish I could take you over the route of the journey I 
made up the Andes from Mollendo to Arequipa. The 
country 1s even more dreary and wild than that above 
Lima. I rode for miles without seeing a blade of grass or 
anything green. I saw shifting sand dunes and bluffs 


137 


LANDS OF “(THE ANDESTAND THE DESERT 


that had been ground so smooth by the wind-blown sand 
that the strata could be plainly seen. Farther on the 
sand had cut into the rock of the mountains, making 
furrows in it like the wrinkles on an old woman’s face. 
In many places the rocks have been ground to a powder. 
These slopes get no rain whatever, and water for the 
stations along the way, as well as for Mollendo, is piped 
from Arequipa. | 

As we went on, it seemed as though the skin of vegeta- 
tion and life had been peeled from the earth, and that we 
could see the great ball as it was before plant or animal 
life had sprung into being. All around us was nothing but 
rock, and there was not a bit of soil in sight. At the same 
time, the scenery was magnificent, and the air was so clear 
I could see for miles. The clouds painted spots of purple 
velvet on the hills all through the afternoon, and toward 
evening the sun tinted the mountains with delicate 
shades of blue, pink, lavender, and mauve, until they 
looked like a mighty picture sketched by the hands of the 
gods on the canvas of the sky. As we started out, we 
could see the spray dashing high up on the beach, and at 
the close of our journey the moon was just rising over the 
snow of the mountains above old Arequipa. The trip 
made a panorama such as | have seen nowhere else, and 
such as I venture can be seen in no other place. 

Arequipa is built in an oasis made by the Chile River in 
the arid Andes of this Pacific coast desert. It is walled 
in by ragged dry mountains but bedded in a valley of 
perpetual green. A legend regarding its origin relates 
that a party of Quichua Indians under an Inca leader came 
upon this beautiful little oasis after a long march through 
the bare and dusty mountain slopes of the surrounding 

128 


ar aaa 


4 


AREQUIPA, CITY OF THE STARS 


desert. Upon their asking the Inca to be allowed to stay 
on that fertile and peaceful spot, he replied, “Ari, que- 
pat,’ which in the Quichua language means, “Yes, re- 
main.” 

Arequipa is about seventy-six hundred feet above the sea 
or a mile and a half higher than Philadelphia. Some of 
the mountains about it are four miles in height. Just 
behind it is the great volcano, Mount Misti, which has a 
crater a half mile in diameter. To the left of Misti is 
Chachani, more than twenty thousand feet high, and be- 
yond are Pichu-Pichu and other Andean giants. 

Indeed, there is no city anywhere in South America more 
beautifully located, and you will go far before you will find 
one that is so fresh, so bright, and so quaint. The houses 
of Arequipa look as though they had just come fresh from a 
toy-shop of the giants. I bought my postage stamps 
to-day in a building the colour of old rose. I ate my 
breakfast in a restaurant painted sky blue, and next door 
was a house the colour of strawberry ice cream. This 
morning I visited the new market of Arequipa; its walls 
are built of pink and white stone. The surrounding 
buildings are of similar bright colours, and the whole seems 
to fit in with the air of southern Peru. 

But come with me into the market. This will show us 
why the city of Arequipa has been built where it is. The 
merchandise you see comes from the valley of the Chile 
River, which contains about fifty square miles of culti- 
vated land. This oasis valley produces grain, alfalfa, 
and fruit, raises cattle and sheep, and makes Arequipa 
an important trading centre. As we go through the 
market we see everywhere evidences of the fertility of the 
soil and the wonderful climate. Nearly every fruit that 

129 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


can be raised in the United States is on sale here. There 
are apricots, peaches, apples, and plums, and strawberries 
as big as a walnut. There are oranges and lemons, 
bananas and figs, and bushels of alligator pears. There 
are green watermelons, some of which are as red inside. as 
any that ever made a darky’s mouth water, and others 
with flesh as yellow as gold, although the seeds are jet 
black. In the vegetable stalls we find fully as great 
a variety. It is now midwinter in the United States, 
but here below the Equator it is summer, and we see 
new potatoes and fresh green corn. There are bright 
red tomatoes, white cauliflowers, and great quantities 
of cabbages, as well as yuccas, sweet potatoes, and 
yams. 

Arequipa is the chief wool market of Peru. The leading 
exporting houses of this city have their agents in all 
parts of the Andean plateau, where they buy vast quanti- 
ties of vicufia, alpaca, and sheep’s wool from the Indians 
and hacendados. The wool is sent overland to Lake 
Titicaca, and from there by rail to Arequipa. Some of it 
is consumed in the woollen mills of Peru, but the bulk of the 
product is sent to Europe and the United States. Besides 
being a market town, Arequipa makes harness and sad- 
dlery, boots and shoes, and it has large cotton, chocolate, 
and flour mills. The Southern Railway of Peru has its 
headquarters here, and also its shops, which employ 
about five hundred men in building passenger and freight 
cars, as well as making all the repairs on its rolling stock. 
This line is one of the three chief gateways to La Paz, the 
capital of Bolivia. 

Travellers bound for La Paz and Cuzco often stop a day 
or so in Arequipa in order to make a more gradual ascent 


130 


Mollendo is the second port of Peru, but it has no harbour to speak of, 
and vessels must lie in the open roadstead. _ It is the coast terminus of the 
railroad to Arequipa, Cuzco, and Lake Titicaca. 


“The country along the railroad from Mollendo is the dreariest and 
wildest imaginable. It never gets a drop of rain, and it looks as though 
the earth had been stripped of its skin of vegetation.” 


Lying in the valley of the Chile River, Arequipa serves a large agricul- 
tural district and is Peru’s chief wool market. It is a stopping place for 


travellers who wish to make a gradual ascent to the higher altitudes of the 
Andes. 


AREQUIPA, CITY OF THE STARS 


from the coast to the rarefied atmosphere of the high- 
lands, and as this travel has increased since the opening 
of the Panama Canal, there has been a marked improve- 
ment in the hotel accommodations. In addition to a 
fairly good hotel, there is a boarding house run by an 
American woman that is famous all over the west coast 
for its comfort and good food. Formerly the chief hotel 
was kept by an Italian who quartered his guests on one 
side of the plaza and fed them on the other side in a long, 
low comedor, or dining room. 

When I visited Arequipa in 1898 it was lighted by 
kerosene, and I do not remember that it had a car line. 
It has now an electric light plant run by water-power, and 
also an excellent system of tramways that extend out 
into the country. It is well equipped with telephones, 
and long-distance messages can be sent at low rates. 

I find Arequipa quite as interesting as Lima. It has a 
great cathedral of white stone that covers an acre or so of 
ground. It faces the plaza, occupying the whole of one 
side of the square. The other three sides are lined with 
stores as quaint as any I have ever seen in Europe. The 
buildings are of only one story, and in front of them ex- 
tend wide portales, or corridors, with huge columns separat- 
ing them from the plaza. On the other side of the 
corridors is a row of cave-like shops, lighted only from the 
front and the roof. The stores are fifteen or twenty feet 
wide and thirty or more feet deep, and with their arched 
ceilings they look like vaults. The goods, which include 
many articles made in the United States, are hung from 
the ceilings and piled up on the floors. 

Nearly all the houses of Arequipa have vaulted roofs, 
which, on some of the one-story structures, extend up in 


131 ¢ 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


oval domes or hoods. The city has had many serious 
earthquakes, and for this reason the skyscraper will 
never be known here. Even a five-story building would 
be the talk of the town. 

Arequipa is one of the oldest cities in America, dating 
back almost to the days of Pizarro. It is a place of old 
families, and the centre of culture for southern Peru, as 
well as an ecclesiastical and political headquarters. There 
are a university and several colleges here, and also a school 
of arts and an agricultural institute. Moreover, this 
city boasts of having the best hospital in South America, 
although the climate is unusually healthful and the death 
rate is low. 

| doubt whether you will find many places that have 
finer weather all the year around than Arequipa. The sky 
is almost always blue, and the days are sunny from morn- 
ing to night. Indeed, the belief that this region has more 
clear weather than almost any other locality on earth 
was responsible for the establishment here of the Harvard 
University observatory. This is one of the most noted 
astronomical stations of the world. It is situated on the 
slope of Mount Misti, five hundred feet above Arequipa, 
where the observers can have an unobstructed view of 
the heavens. ; 

The observatory is equipped with great telescopes, one 
of which has a lens two feet in diameter, enabling the 
scientists to take photographs on plates fourteen by 
seventeen inches in size. The tube of that giant in- 
strument is so delicately balanced that a child could 
move it. The Harvard scientists have taken as many as 
fifty photographs in a night and thousands in a year. 
After being developed, the negatives are shipped to Cam- 

132 


AREQUIPA CLIPY OF THE SPARS 


bridge, where there are now more than one hundred 
thousand of them available. 

There is, I am told, nothing duplicated in the sky. 
Each half of the world has its own stars and constellations, 
and there are some here that we never see in the North. 
One of them is the famous Southern Cross, but it seems 
to me that its beauty has been greatly exaggerated. 
There are only four stars in it, and they are so small that 
one has to look hard to find them. It does not compare 
with the Big Dipper. Many of the other stars are far 
more brilliant than in the North. This is so of the 
Milky Way and of most of the planets. I have been 
on the Equator when the path of a planet on the still 
waters of the ocean was almost as well marked as the 
reflection of the moon; and in riding at night up the 
Amazon River the stars seemed so close that | felt as 
though I could almost reach out and grasp them. 

The story of the establishment of this observatory 1s 
interesting. It was near the end of the nineteenth cen- 
tury when Uriah H. Borden died and left two hundred 
thousand dollars to Harvard University, with the stipula- 
tion that the money was to be used to build an observatory 
at the best place on earth for the study of the stars. The 
authorities tried Colorado and California, and then 
came to South America. Their first work was done back 
of Lima on what is now called Mount Harvard, but in 
1891 they moved their station to Arequipa. The uni- 
versity astronomers have been working here ever since. 
In 1892 the scientists established a meteorological station 
on Mount Chachani at an elevation of 16,650 feet. This 
was moved the following year to the top of Mount Misti. 

Mount Misti is 19,200 feet high, so that this weather 


133 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


station is the loftiest of its kind in the world. It is higher 


than any point in North America outside Alaska, and it is 
fully a mile above the observatory on the top of Pike’s 
Peak. ‘The site of the station is on the edge of the huge 
crater, which at times sends clouds of sulphurous yellow 
vapour a thousand feet into the air. At other times, I am 
told, the volcano spits out hot water and steam. The 
automatic instruments installed on the mountain will run 
several months without rewinding. They keep a continu- 
ous record of temperatures, rainfall, air pressure, humidity, 
the direction and velocity of the winds, and of other con- 
ditions of the atmosphere, and the scientists need only visit 
the station at intervals to note the results. The machines 
work with great regularity, but sometimes the mountain 
is so covered with snow and at other times swept by such 
gales that there is now and then an interruption in th 

records. | 

Although the station is only eleven miles in a straight 
line from the observatory, it is forty miles distant by way 
of the road built to the summit of the mountain. The 
trip up to it is made on muleback, travellers spending the 
night at a hut at the base of the peak. One of the first 
huts erected on the trail stood at an altitude of more than 
sixteen thousand feet. It was known as the “Inn of 
the Water of Miracles,” because of an old legend that the 
Lord appeared here and caused water to flow from the 
ground. This spring, the Indians say, is the same one 
that is still bubbling away near the hut. 

Professor Bailey, who established the station, had great 
difficulty in transporting his instruments to the mountain- 
top. A large number of mules and Indians was needed to 
carry the material. As they still do to-day, the Indians 


134 


Because it has such a high percentage of cloudless days and nights, 
Arequipa was chosen as the site of the Harvard Observatory. Above It, 
on Mount Misti, is the world’s highest weather station. 


Juliaca is a town on the roof of the continent, more than two miles 


high on the Peruvian plateau. The tops of the mountain ranges about it 
are three miles and more above sea level. 


—_—. -”--” 


AREQUIPA, CITY OF THE STARS 


then regarded Misti with superstition, and when they 
found an iron cross standing on the mountain-top they 
fell down and worshipped. This cross is said to have 
been set up in 1677 by a party of Spanish priests who had 
gone there to offer prayers to Misti that the city of 
Arequipa might be made free from earthquakes. The 
Spaniards found at the summit of the mountain the re- 
mains of stone structures that have now disappeared, and 
it is believed that the crater was the scene of sacrificial 
rites and ceremonies held by a people long before the time 
of the Incas. 


135 


CHAPTER XVI 
FARMING IN THE LAND OF THE SKY 


Y PRESENT destination is Cuzco, the ancient 
Inca capital, far up in the Andes. By fast trains 
it is possible to go all the way from Mollendo to 
Cuzco within three days, but I am taking sev- 
eral more for the journey in order that I may better see 
the country and the people. From Arequipa I crossed 
the pass of Crucero Alto, the highest on the route of the 
Southern Railway of Peru, and then dropped down to 
Juliaca, which has an altitude of less than thirteen thou- 
sand feet. Juliaca is the junction where the Southern 
Railway divides, one branch going southward to Puno 
on Lake Titicaca. The other branch, and the one | took, 
goes north over the great plateau to Cuzco. I am now at 
Sicuani, a little town only one hundred miles or so from 
Cuzco, and I shall go on to that famous city to-morrow. 
Sicuani is east of the western range of the Andes, and it 
was in a driving snowstorm that I slid over the moun- 
tains from the Pacific slope to the plateau. The journey 
from Arequipa to the top of the mountains is even more 
marvellous than the first part of the trip over the desert 
from Mollendo. JI wound my way around Mount Misti, 
and higher still saw mountains covered with glaciers, some 
of them of enormous extent. 
The greater part of the way was through a region of 
extinct volcanoes. The slope of Mount Misti is covered 
i130 


Sa i 


. 


FARMING IN THE LAND OF THE SKY 


with great blocks of black lava, and the mountains that 
wall this high valley where I now am have Niagaras of 
lava that seem to have frozen as they flowed down the 
slopes from the craters above. In places I could look over 
walls of such rock a thousand feet high, and above them, 
on mountains that are more than four miles in height, 
could see glaciers. At times these mountains rise up like 
great white ramparts of irregular shape, and again they 
extend in a saw-tooth formation as far as the eye can reach. 

Everywhere along the railroad are irrigated valleys. 
The streams are small, but even a little water makes the 
desert a garden. Along the course of the Chile River is 
a strip of green, and about Arequipa wheat, barley, corn, 
and all the vegetables and fruits of the tropic and temper- 
ate zones are raised. 

The vegetation changes as one nears the top of the Andes. 
At an altitude of two miles or more grass begins to sprinkle 
the semi-arid hillsides, and as soon as we crossed the pass 
and came down to the plateau we were in a region of sod 
covered with tufts of wiry grass. The new sprouts of 
this grass are eaten by cattle, but most of it 1s so coarse 
that only the llamas will feed on it. The plateau is 
covered with tens of thousands of cattle and millions of 
sheep and alpacas. At every few miles are Indian villages, 
and in places the plain is dotted with low mud huts roofed 
with straw, each of which is the home of an Indian who 
grazes his alpacas and llamas close by. Near every hut 
is a small patch of potatoes, barley, or quinua. Quinua 
is a plant something like pigweed, from the seeds of which 
the Indians make a sort of mush. 

The average altitude of this region is from twelve to 
thirteen thousand feet above the sea, and some places are 


137 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


more than fourteen thousand feet high. There are 
millions of acres of land in the plateau with a climate in 
which white men can live, and a land development scheme 
has been inaugurated by the Peruvian Corporation, the 
British company that operates many of the government 
railways. This company sent to the United States for an 
agricultural expert to determine what grasses and grains 
are best adapted for cultivation on the plateau. I met 
this man at Juliaca and went with him to some of the 
experimental farms. He showed me a field of four or five 
acres near the railroad planted to cereals and grasses of 
various kinds. One plot of barley consisted of perhaps 
fifty rows, each row grown from seed gathered from a 
different part of the world. Some came from Smyrna, 
some from Yugoslavia, some from Russia, and some from 
the western highlands of the United States. Other rows 
were from seed brought from Manchuria and the plateaus 
of India and Tibet. All of these barleys were doing well, 
and many of them looked better than the native Peruvian 
grain. There seems to be no doubt that almost any kind 
of hardy barley can be raised on the plateau, and that 
these experiments will greatly contribute to farm progress 
on the highlands of Peru. 

The plateau was once part of the basin of Lake Titicaca, 
and its soil is rich and almost free from stones. There are 
millions of acres of it that have never been touched by the 
plough; indeed, it is doubtful whether any of it has ever 
been thoroughly cultivated. The Indians use ploughs 
made of wood that cut the ground toa depth of only three 
inches. They work bullocks as draft animals, and farm 
the same way that their ancestors did generations ago. 
Even so, they raise fairly good crops. 


138 


FARMING IN THE LAND OF THE SKY 


The most common farm implement used by the Indians 
is a kind of foot plough called a facila in the Quichua 
language. It consists of a wooden handle five or six feet 
long shod with an iron point. On the left side, as the 
Indian holds it, are two projections from the handle, one 
for his foot and one for his hand, to aid in forcing it into 
the earth. This primitive plough, though handled some- 
what like a spade, is not used to turn over the ground but 
only to loosen it. Two men always work together side 
by side so that their ¢acllas lift up the same piece of sod. 
A boy or woman works along with them, kneeling on the 
ground and turning up the loosened earth. A similar 
implement is found still in use in parts of Scotland and in 
the Hebrides Islands. 

We next went to the plots where experiments are being 
made with hardy grasses. There I saw American timothy 
and red clover sprouting through the brown soil. I saw 
patches of Russian grasses growing luxuriantly, and also 
wheat grasses from our western plains, as well as a member 
of one of the families of blue grass that thrive on the high 
plateau of the Rockies. 

From the plateau the railroad drops down into the valley 
in which Cuzco is located. This valley is a series of little 
Gardens of Eden, and there are cultivated lands along 
both sides of the Vilcanota River. The fields are in 
terraces green with luxuriant crops, and the water is 
carried out over them so that it falls from level to level. 
In coming to Sicuani | saw many patches of barley, pota- 
toes, and beans, and also hundreds of little fields of Indian 
corn. In the upper altitudes this crop reaches to the 
height of my knee, but where the lands are a little lower, 
and consequently warmer, it grows as high as my shoulder. 


139 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


I am told that in the valley near Cuzco, through which 
I shall go to-morrow, the crops are still more advanced, 
and that the barley, which is green in the highlands, is 
there almost ready for harvest. The irrigated land of the 
valley is exceedingly valuable and has all been taken up 
by whites or cholos, who are exploiting it with Indian 
labour. 

The chief industry of the Peruvian plateau is stock-rais- 
ing rather than farming. The climate at an altitude of 
twelve thousand feet is warm during the day, and even 
in the coldest of weather the thermometer does not drop 
below zero at night. Therefore the sheep and cattle can 
feed out-of-doors all the year round. When snow falls 
the hot sun melts it in an hour or so. About the most 
dangerous features of the weather are thunderstorms, 
with their accompanying lightning, which often kills 
people and sheep. The plateau has two seasons, dry and 
wet. The wet season begins in September or October and 
lasts until April or May. During that time it is usually 
clear in the morning, with rain or snow in the afternoon. 
The dry season, which is from May to September, is de- 
lightfully clear. The sky is always blue, and the tropical 
sun makes the weather much like Indian summer in the 
Virginia mountains, which I believe is the very best 
weather on earth. 

On my trip over the Central Railway to Cerro de Pasco 
I passed flock after flock of fat sheep with tails as big 
around as my arm. To my eyes, there seemed to be 
nothing for them to eat, but they manage to live and grow 
fat on the moss and the thin, fuzzy grass. Some of the 
large flocks are owned by rich capitalists. There is one 
firm near Cerro de Pasco that has sixty thousand or more, 

140 


FARMING IN THE LAND OF THE SKY 


There are also hundreds of squatters, Indians or cholos, 
each of whom raises a few sheep every year. I saw 
watching over the flocks boys and girls of ten or twelve 
years of age, who knitted or spun as they cared for the 
sheep. 

Some of the great haciendas of the high Andes yield large 
incomes. There is one near La Fundicién that produces 
tens of thousands of pounds of wool every year. It 
belongs to a company in Lima and is managed by a 
Scotchman who employs only Scotch shepherds. This 
ranch has thirty-six thousand sheep, which are kept in 
fenced fields. The manager is making many experiments 
in introducing new blood into the flocks, and he is also 
crossing Scotch collie dogs with the native dogs of Peru 
to produce a breed especially suited to conditions on the 
high Andes. 

An Italian in this section is experimenting in bringing 
in fancy breeds of cattle. He has a number of large 
haciendas, and expects to supply the meat market of the 
coast. This same man owns thousands of llamas and 
donkeys and is said to have almost a monopoly on the 
freight business about Cerro de Pasco. 

I never tire of watching the llamas. They crowd the 
streets of the villages, droves of them line the plazas of 
every city and town, and | have often met long caravans 
of them being driven across the plain. They are, in fact, 
competing with the railroads as the common carriers of the 
Andes. They transport grain, vegetables, hides, alcohol, 
coca leaves, and goods of every description. Many of 
them are used to convey the ore from the mines to the 
smelters, and the farmers use them to take their produce 
to the towns and railroads. 


141 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


The llamas carry their burdens tied on their backs like a 
saddle, and not in the panniers used with donkeys. There 
is a tradition that a llama will carry just one hundred 
pounds and that if one ounce more is added he will lie 
down and no whipping or beating can make him go on. 
This statement is ridiculous. The llama, if overburdened, 
will surely lie down and refuse to move, but that he has 
the intelligence to know when the hundred-pound load is 
reached is one of the fictions of the modern Munchausens. 
Indeed, there are very few llamas that can carry as much 
as a hundred pounds, although there are some of the beasts 
that will carry one hundred and twenty. The average 
load is about seventy-five or eighty pounds. 

The llamas are of different sizes, according to their ages 
and the care they have received. When full-grown their 
heads reach a height of six feet or more; but their long, 
straight necks make them look taller. They have long 
ears that stand up like those of a fox terrier. They have 
full, round bodies, like that of a sheep, and comparatively 
long legs. They look like miniature camels, and like the 
camel, they can go for several days without food or water. 
Many of the farms are remote from the towns or the rail- 
roads, and a llama has often to make a journey of four or 
five days or a week in carrying his load to its destination 
and bringing another back. During this time I am told 
that he eats practically nothing, and gets along without 
water. The wool of the llama, as I have said, is coarse 
and has no value in commerce, although it is used by the 
Indians for spinning thread and making rough cloth. 
The meat also is too coarse for the markets. 

The alpacas are much smaller than the llamas, and do 
not look so much like camels, having shorter necks. They 


142 


Llamas are competitors of the railroads as common carriers of the 
Andes. They are sure-footed beasts, adapted to the mountain trails, 
and, like camels, can make long trips on but little food and water. 


In contrast to the bleak lava-coated mountains, the little green valleys 
between seem like miniature Edens. The Indians irrigate their terraced 
farms with water from the river, and get excellent results in crops. 


= ey ae 


> 


4 
, 


FARMING IN THE LAND OF THE SKY 


are more delicate and are not used as beasts of burden, al- 
though there are crosses between the alpaca and the 
llama that serve as freight carriers. They are usually to 
be seen in the llama trains and are often of a brownish 
yellow colour. The alpacas one sees on the pastures— 
and there are millions of them on the high Andes—are 
white, black, or brown, and sometimes spotted. They 
do not thrive anywhere below a mile above the sea, and 
they are usually found at a height of two miles or more. 
The grass they are accustomed to eat on the high plateau 
is short and fine, and they eat it down so close to the 
ground that the sand keeps their teeth worn down. In 
the luxuriant grass of the lowlands their teeth often grow so 
long that they cannot graze. 

The wool of the alpaca is very fine and often more than 
eight inches long; it brings about twice as much a pound as 
sheep’s wool. Usually the animals are clipped every two 
years, when the average fleece should weigh five pounds. 
In some years nearly four million pounds of alpaca wool is 
shipped to England for manufacture. Three fourths of 
the entire supply of the world comes from Peru. 

I have seen some vicufias during my travels through the 
Andes. They are the wild half-sisters and half-brothers of 
the llamas and alpacas, and are smaller than either. They 
cannot be domesticated, but they will sometimes come 
down from the mountains and mix with the flocks of 
llamas, alpacas, and sheep on the plains. They are 
often shot by the Indians and cholos, although this is 
against the law. 

The vicufia wool is finer than that of the alpaca, and it 
brings a high price. There is so little of it, however, that 
it is hardly worth mentioning, much of the so-called 


143 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


vicufia cloth being really made of alpaca wool. The 
yellow, woolly fur of the vicufia is as soft as a sealskin 
coat, and for this reason the pelts are used to make the 
rugs so highly prized by tourists. These rugs vary in 
value according to the part of the animal from which 
they come. A rug made from the necks or legs is much 
more valuable than one from pieces taken from the 
rest of the body. During a previous visit to South 
America | bought a beautiful vicufia rug in La Paz for 
about twenty dollars in gold. I am told that similar 
ones now cost fifty dollars and more. 

The vicufia has been crossed with the alpaca, producing 
the animal known as the “‘paco-vicufia,” which can be 
domesticated. Its wool is especially valuable, combining 
the length of alpaca wool with the silkiness of the vicufia. 


CHAPTER XVII 
THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCAS 


OME with me this morning for a stroll through 

Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Incas, that 
wonderful people who ruled most of western 

South America until about four hundred years 

ago. Like the reigning dynasties of old Japan and 
Egypt, they believed themselves to be descended from the 
gods, and they called themselves the children of the sun. 

One tradition tells that the Incas sprang into existence 
on one of the islands of Lake Titicaca. A prince and 
princess of the race, Manco Ccapac and his wife, who 
was also his sister, were given a golden rod by the sun 
god and directed to go forth and civilize the savages who 
then inhabited the high plateau of the Andes. They 
were told to build a city wherever that rod should sink 
into the earth. They travelled across the plateau over 
much the same route by which I came on the railroad, 
and when they reached this spot the golden rod fell and 
disappeared into the ground. 

They established their capital on the site of Cuzco, on 
the slope of the mountain overlooking a beautiful and 
fertile valley in the heart of the Andes. That was hun- 
dreds of years before Columbus discovered America, and 
the empire then founded was from four to six centuries 
old when it was destroyed by the Spaniards. 

The Incas first cultivated the valley of Cuzco, and 


145 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


then gradually conquered the neighbouring regions until 
their dominions extended northward far beyond Quito 
and south of where the capital of Chile now stands. They 
had subjects all along the eastern slopes of the Andes, and 
the western limit of their rule was the mighty Pacific. 
They governed a country as long as the distance between 
the Arctic Ocean and the shores of Lake Erie and larger 
than all the United States east of the Mississippi Valley. 
Their subjects were numbered by the tens of millions. 

The Incas built a road through their territory from Lake 
Titicaca to Quito, the remains of which can still be found. 
As there were no wheeled vehicles at that time, the high- 
way was in many places not wide enough for the cart or 
automobile of to-day, but it was nevertheless a difficult 
piece of construction. In places it went up and down 
steps cut into the steep mountain slopes, in others it 
wound around obstacles, and many times it narrowed to a 
mere path in which the Indians had to walk single file. 

At the time they were overthrown by the Spaniards, 
the Incas had divided the country into provinces, ruled 
by viceroys and subordinate officials. They had not only 
subdued the savages, but civilized them as well, making 
them into farmers, mechanics, and artisans. In their 
religion they recognized the sun as the lord of the world, 
and their emperor as his representative on earth. One 
of their prayers was somewhat as follows: 

O conquering and ever-present Creator, Thou who gavest life and 
strength to mankind, saying let this be a man, and let this bea woman; 


Thou who vouchsafest that man shall live in health and peace; Thou 
who dwelleth in the heights, in the storm clouds, and in the thunder: 


hear us and have us in Thy keeping. Thou who art without equal 
unto the ends of the earth, grant us eternal life and keep us free from 


danger. 


146 


Built by an even earlier race than the Incas, the great Sacsahuaman for- 
tress was one of the last places defended against the invading Spaniards. 
The latter used the walls as a source of building stone. 


“So skilfully did the Incas fit together the huge blocks of stone, without 
the use of mortar or cement, that | could not thrust my knife blade in the 
cracks between. Some of the stones weigh eight hundred tons.” 


THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCAS 


The Incas built temples to the sun, some of which were 
plated with gold, and within which were images of the sun 
god made of pure gold. The people believed in this re- 
ligion and were pious and peaceful. They gave a part of 
their time to work for their god, and a part for the sick and 
the widows and orphans. They worked also for the govern- 
ment, and, last of all, for themselves and their families. 

The Incas irrigated the deserts, and the remains of their 
aqueducts, built of stone slabs neatly fitted together, 
can be seen to-day. Millions of acres were watered by 
these works, which included one aqueduct that was five 
hundred miles long. Their irrigating canals ran along the 
sides of the mountains and also were cut through them in 
tunnels. As I rode to Cuzco along the high plateau, | 
saw thousands of acres of terraces, now gone to ruin and 
almost a desert, that these people once made to blossom 
like the rose. Such terraces are found on the sides of the 
mountains above almost every valley of the Peruvian 
plateau and along the west coast. They extended up the 
slopes like so many steps, the earth being held back with 
stone walls. 

The Incas at that time were by far the most civilized 
people of all South America, and they are believed by some 
to have been more advanced than the Aztecs of Mexico. 
They knew how to mine and work gold and silver, and 
were skilful in the refining of copper and lead. I have 
seen some of the tools they used in erecting their build- 
ings. They knew how to temper an alloy of copper 
and tin in such a way that the tools made of it had an 
edge like a razor and could cut the hardest of stone. They 
tamed the wild llamas and alpacas of the pampas. They 
made the llamas their beasts of burden, and from the 


147 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


wool of the alpaca and the vicufia they wove garments and 
blankets. They were a nation of potters and shaped 
beautiful vessels out of clay. They made also hats and 
shoes and were skilled in the dyeing of fabrics. 

Here at Cuzco and in other parts of Peru I have seen 
animal figures made by the Incas. They are known as the 
“Small Stone Llamas of Cuzco,” and are pieces of stone 
shaped like llamas, with a hole in each one the size of a 
thimble. They were used as sacrifices to Pachamama 
(the Earth), as a payment for the pasture eaten by the 
flocks. The holes were filled with wine or alcohol, and 
the images buried in the ground where the sheep and 
llamas grazed. A new figure was buried each year, the 
old one being dug up and reinterred at a greater depth. 

These Incas, whose ancestors date back almost to the 
time of Christ, knew something of astronomy. They 
observed the equinoxes and the eclipses of the moon and 
the sun. They had a system of arithmetic and made cal- 
culations by means of knots on strings of different colours. 
They had musical instruments like some that their de- 
scendants play upon to-day, and it is said that they had 
songs of love-making and a drama. 

It was while the Inca civilization was at its height that 
Atahualpa, the ruler of the northern part of their territory, 
was captured at Cajamarca and put to death by Pizarro. 
The Spaniards later visited Cuzco and robbed it of its 
treasures. They tore down the mighty temples and for- 
tresses, erecting churches and other buildings on their 
foundations, and tried in every way to destroy all vestiges 
of the Inca Empire. From then until Peru won her in- 
dependence in the war of 1821, almost three centuries 
later, Cuzco was in the hands of the Spanish. 

148 


THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCAS 


Ruins of the ancient buildings erected by the Incas 
are still being found in this valley. In Cuzco itself are 
the remains of structures of enormous extent. The 
Temple of the Sun, for instance, which was known to the 
Incas as the Coricancha, or “the place of gold,” covered 
the whole square now occupied by the church and convent 
of Santo Domingo. The old walls of that temple, which 
in places extend twenty or thirty feet from the ground, 
form the foundation for the church. I was taken through 
the buildings by one of the fathers and shown how the 
great blocks of stone had been fitted together so closely 
without mortar or cement that the point of a needle 
could not be pushed into the cracks. 

The temple was straight on three sides, with a great 
oval at the back. It was about twelve hundred feet long 
and its walls were two stories high. They were sur- 
rounded by a thick cornice or border of gold about eight 
inches wide, and where the wall joined the roof there was 
another broad golden band. The roof was covered with 
gold, and the inner walls of the temple were plated with 
it and engraved with designs of vegetables and vines. 
Opposite the entrance to the temple was a mighty plate 
of solid gold, heavily encrusted with emeralds and other 
precious stones, representing a human face surrounded by 
rays. It was the image of the sun worshipped by the 
Incas. They considered gold sacred to the sun, and often 
referred to it as the tears of their god. On both sides of the 
image were the embalmed bodies of the Incas of the past, 
each seated on a chair of solid gold. 

Like the fire worshippers of Persia to-day the Incas 
kept burning in the temple a sacred flame that was sup- 
posed never to go out. This flame was tended by the 


149 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


virgins of the sun, who had a vast convent not far away. 
When the Spaniards conquered the Incas, they stripped 
this temple of all its gold. They melted up the images 
and vessels used for worship, and tore from the walls 
the golden plates. I am told that there were temples 
to the sun at many other places in Peru, and also temples 
to the stars and the moon. According to tradition there 
were also chapels to these heavenly bodies in the great 
temple at Cuzco. 

Leaving the Temple of the Sun, I strolled up the narrow 
street to where the virgins of the sun had their quarters. 
These young women, in addition to their religious duties, 
are supposed to have formed a harem for the Incas. They 
lived in enormous structures scattered over the empire 
and some of their convents are said to have had a thousand 
members. The one in Cuzco must have covered eight 
acres. The walls, which still stand, surround the greater 
part of a square, forming the foundations of many homes 
built on the second story. Much of the first story has 
been turned into stores. The granite walls have been cut 
away and cave-like vaults made, in which all sorts of 
industry goes on. I saw a saddler sewing at harness 
in one cave in the wall, a shoemaker pegging away in a 
second, and a carpenter sawing and planing in a third. 
The blocks of this building are of great size and apparently 
they will last for ages. 

Other interesting remains are the walls of the palaces 
in which the Incas lived. That of Pachacutec stood not 
far from where the cathedral now is. The original walls 
of the palace are still preserved to the height of the first 
story. The remainder of the building was built by the 
Spaniards, and to-day makes a fine residence for one of the 

150 


One of the riddles of the City of the Sun is why the Incas cut great 
stone seats in the rock overlooking the fort that guarded the capital. 
Some believe that here were performed special rites to the rising sun. 


‘My secretary put his head through the hole in the torture stone, but 
he refused to let me bend his legs over his back and thrust his feet 
through the slot, as the Spaniards used to do with heretics.” 


THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCAS 


rich men of Cuzco. One wall of the building is perhaps 
three hundred feet long, including the greater part of the 
block. The stones are granite, of different sizes, beauti- 
fully chiselled, and joined with unions so fine that it is 
impossible to put a knife blade between them. One 
great block about four feet square and weighing several 
tons has twelve angles. I have heard that gold and 
silver were sometimes placed between the joints as a 
bedding material, but I saw no evidence of this in my 
examination. Another legend says that the Incas knew 
of a plant that, when crushed, softened the stone so that 
it could be rubbed into the desired shape. 

Some of the most remarkable buildings of ancient 
Cuzco were the fortifications of Sacsahuaman, which 
crowned the top of a hill just back of the city. This hill 
rises precipitously to a height of seven or eight hundred 
feet above the level of Cuzco. It is so steep that one has 
to wind about to climb it. I rode upon horseback a part 
of the way and then left my horse and climbed up the 
walls of the fort on foot. On the lower slopes of the hill, 
perhaps five hundred feet above Cuzco, and facing a 
garden made in two terraces, stood the palace of Manco 
Ccapac, the first great Inca ruler. This was directly 
under the fortifications and commanded a magnificent view 
of the city and valley. On the first terrace now stands a 
church, erected in the days of the Inquisition, and outside 
are some great stone instruments of torture, which were 
used to bring the Indians and the heretics to the Christian 
faith. Some of these stones had an opening shaped 
like a keyhole, the round part of the hole being nearest 
the ground, and the remainder in the form of a capital T. 
The hole was just large enough so that a man’s head could 


151 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


be squeezed through it, his neck lying on the stone. He 
was put into this position face downward, and his legs were 
then bent up over his back and his feet thrust through 
the T part of the key. The torture was such that it 
often caused death. I had my secretary get down and 
put his head through the hole in one of the stones to 
illustrate how it was done. He refused, however, when 
I tried to induce him also to let me put his legs through 
thei! 

The palace of Manco Ccapac must have been a magni- 
ficent home. Its garden-covered acres, the main part 
standing upon a terrace twelve feet above the church, | 
have described. This terrace is made of these wonderful 
walls, into which are fitted sentinel boxes. Walking 
through the garden, which is now filled with eucalyptus 
trees and beautiful roses, I came to the ruins of the palace 
itself. It was made of black granite, the blocks being very 
thick at the bottom and lessening in size toward the top. 
On the other side of the structure some of the stones have 
been torn away, and I could see that the thick walls were 
double, filled in with stones and mud. I took a sheet of 
paper from my notebook and tried to fit it in between the 
cracks, but found it impossible. Manco Ccapac’s palace 
and its ground are now the property of a wealthy Italian 
merchant of Cuzco. He has planted the garden with 
flowers. and the trees that have grown up in it almost hide 
the city below. 

Leaving the palace and climbing up to the fort, I found 
an enormous structure surrounding many acres and en- 
closing the whole top of the hill. The walls of the forti- 
fication are in terraces that rise one over the other. They 
are made of enormous blocks of granite, some of which 

152 


— a 
; : 


THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCAS 


weigh many tons. There is no stone of the same nature 
near by, and the blocks must have been brought from a 
great distance. No one knows exactly where they came 
from nor how they were carried up this precipitous hill, 
which is almost a thousand feet above the plain. It is 
supposed that roads were made for the purpose and that 
hundreds of men had to work together to move a single 
stone. The fort was built long before the time of Colum- 
bus, and some of its walls are in perfect condition to-day. 
Each section of the wall has a hole for drainage, and the 
whole structure is almost as smoothly cut as the palaces. 
I measured some stones that were fifteen feet high, and 
riding on horseback close to the wall beside one great 
block and standing in my stirrups, I was able to reach 
only halfway up. That stone, I venture, weighed one 
hundred tons. 

From these fortifications I rode over the hills and plains 
near by, which are covered with the remains of other Inca 
structures. Much of the rock consists of mighty boulders, 
some as big as a haystack, which were cut into all sorts of 
shapes. One is known as the Inca throne. The original 
granite was cut in ledges or steps rising to a low table 
or bed, upon which the Inca is supposed to have lain on 
a couch of furs or alpaca skins, with his officials sitting 
cross-legged on each side of him. 

Not far from this place is what is called the concert 
hall or amusement ground of these ancient rulers. It is an 
open-air court of several acres. On one side of it is a rocky 
hill in which seats have been cut, and under it is a tunnel 
supposed to have communicated with the Temple of the 
Sun in Cuzco, perhaps three miles away. This tunnel 
was closed up after some students of the Cuzco University 


153 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


became lost inside it while hunting for treasures and 
narrowly escaped death. 

Another formation near the Inca amusement ground is 
known as the rodadero. It consists of granite blocks that 
look as though they had flowed in ridges down the moun- 
tain. The rocks are as smooth as glass, and their slopes 
are in waves much like those of a roller coaster. They are 
grooved, and are so formed that one can seat himself at the 
top in one of the grooves and have a toboggan slide of 
hundreds of feet, rising and falling as he goes down to the 
bottom. It is the greatest shoot-the-chute I have ever 
seen, and if it could be lifted from the top of the Andes to 
Coney Island it would surely make the fortune of the man 
who owned it. 

About sixty miles northwest of Cuzco are the ruins of 
Machu-Picchu, which were discovered in 1911 by Professor 
Hiram Bingham of Yale University, and which are said 
to be more wonderful than those of Cuzco. It is believed 
that those ruins mark the site of the lost city of Tampu 
Tocco. One legend says that city, and not an island on 
Lake Titicaca, was the place from which the Incas came 
when they went out upon the plateau and founded their 
vast empire. Machu-Picchu is situated on a mountain 
top in one of the most inaccessible parts of the Andes, and 
was evidently deserted by the Incas when they made 
Cuzco their capital. There is no record of its ever having 
been discovered by the Spaniards, which accounts for 
the remarkable state of preservation of its temples and 
fortifications. 

Other Inca ruins near Cuzco have been found at Ollan- 
taytambo and at Vitcos. The latter place was probably 
the last stronghold of an Inca monarch. When Pizarro 


154 


THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCAS 


captured Cuzco he appointed the son of a former king 
as a figurehead ruler. This Inca rebelled against Spanish 
domination, and, gathering together an army of loyal 
Indians, he attacked Cuzco. His siege was unsuccessful, 
and so he retreated to the mountains with his followers. 
He lived at Vitcos for ten years, and at his death his two 
sons governed this last remaining vestige of the Inca em- 
pire for thirty-five years longer. 


155 


CHAPTER XVIII 
THE CUZCO OF TO-DAY 


ODERN Cuzco is not one tenth the size of the 
city that Pizarro plundered. It has now only 
about twenty thousand inhabitants, including 
Indians and whites and the half-breed offspring 

of the two races. It is more like a city of old Spain 
built during the days of Columbus than the magnificent 
capital it was when the Incas ruled here. 

The Spaniards made of Cuzco a town of one, two, and 
three-story structures, built of stone or plastered adobe. 
Its roofs of light-red tiles sparkle under the blue sky and 
the bright sun of the Andes. The houses have gay- 
coloured walls; they are close to the sidewalks, lining the 
narrow, cobble-paved streets. 

High above the houses rise the domes and the spires 
of the great churches and convents built by the Spaniards 
when they had grown rich by enslaving the Indians 
and taking the vast hoards of silver and gold they found 
in the city. Cuzco has a church for every thousand 
inhabitants, and some of them are so magnificent that 
they would attract attention in any city of Europe. In 
the centre of the town is a beautiful plaza, the site of what 
was once the chief square of the Inca capital. During 
Spanish rule it was the scene of many acts of cruelty and 
torture. It was here in 1571 that the boy Inca, Tupac 
Amaru, was beheaded after being taken prisoner by the 

156 


ary eULCOLO PTO AN 


Spaniards. Following his capture he was instructed in 
the Christian faith by two priests and later baptized. 
On the day of his execution he was dressed in white robes 
and led to this plaza, where hundreds of his subjects had 
gathered. However, when the executioner brought out 
his knife and prepared to strike, such a wail of horror and 
protestation arose from both Indians and Spaniards that 
the beheading was stopped. Messengers were sent to the 
Viceroy of Peru at his Cuzco headquarters, asking for 
mercy, but their intercession was of no avail, and the 
execution was carried out. Afterward,: the viceroy 
caused the head of Tupac to be set up on a pole in the 
plaza, but when he learned that the Inca’s subjects came 
there each night and knelt in silent adoration and worship, 
he ordered it to be buried with the body. 

The plaza does not now cover more than four or five 
acres, but five churches face upon it, including the Cathe- 
dral of Cuzco, which alone covers several acres. Across the 
way is the great structure of La Compajiia, which was 
built by the Jesuits as their chief house of worship. Ad- 
joining is the magnificent old Jesuit convent, where the 
monks worked and taught. When the government 
drove the Jesuits out, the building was turned into a 
university. The patio about which the holy fathers 
strolled is now used as a tennis court, and as I passed by 
I saw the students driving the balls back and forth over 
the net. 

Another great church is La Merced, through which I was 
guided by a young priest. Its interior is a mass of carving, 
including fluted stone columns and a ceiling panelled in 
cedar. The Church of Santo Domingo stands on the 
foundation of the old Temple of the Sun, as I have already 


157 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


pointed out, and that of San Francisco has a choir famous 
for its rich carving. The little chapel of San Blas has the 
finest wood pulpit in the world. It was carved by the 
descendants of the Incas, and is considered so unusual 
that twenty-five thousand dollars was recently offered for 
it. 

The Cathedral of Cuzco is one of the finest of all the 
Catholic churches in South America. It is particularly 
noted for the beautiful tone of its bell, said to be due 
to the large amount of gold it contains. Three hundred 
pounds of the precious metal was given by one woman, by 
whose name, Maria Angola, the bell is now known: The 
cathedral is a vast museum of carvings plated with gold, 
of wonderful paintings, some of them by old masters, and 
of chapels with altars of solid silver and woodwork inlaid 
with gold. Some of the paintings are forty feet high 
and twenty feet wide, and there is one of the Last Supper 
that measures about thirty by forty feet. A few are by 
Murillo, one is by Van Dyck, and several are the work of 
Domenichino. One of the altars was presented by 
Charles V of Spain, and some of the paintings were given 
by Philip II. 

In one of the walls of the sacristy is a vault filled with 
treasures, including gold, silver, and precious stones, 
valued at more than a million dollars. In this vault is 
the custodia, a box that contains the sacrament used at 
the time of processions. This box weighs thirty-six 
pounds and it was made of the solid gold plates taken from 
the Temple of the Sun. The diamonds and emeralds 
on it are worth even more than the gold itself. These 
treasures are stored away in a closet with a door of wrought 
iron so rude that it could be opened by any safe-breaker 

158 


Many of the buildings of modern Cuzco are built upon the ancient Inca 
structures. The latter are distinguishable by their sloping walls of cut 
stone blocks beautifully fitted together. 


With its university and cathedral, Cuzco was for centuries a stronghold 
of the religion and culture of the Spaniards, just as it had been the reli- 
gious and political capital of the sun-worshipping Incas. 


He GUZCOROr TO-DAY 


or ordinary burglar. It is, perhaps, the reverence of the 
people and their fear of damnation that preserve the con- 
tents of the vault from theft. 

One of the treasures in the cathedral is a life-size 
statue of Christ fastened to a wooden cross by great nails 
of gold. The figure is decorated with jewels, and the 
pedestal or car upon which the cross stands is plated with 
silver and encrusted with diamonds. This image 1s 
greatly revered in Cuzco. It is carried through the 
streets on Good Monday, at which time the people kneel 
down on the sidewalks before it and pray. They call it 
the Lord of the Earthquakes and think that their city 
is safe from seismic disturbances as long as the annual 
procession takes place. This belief comes from a tradi- 
tion that once when the statue was left in the church 
beyond the hour usually set for the procession, the moun- 
tains began to sway and an earthquake occurred. There- 
upon the image was brought out and the earth ceased its 
quaking. 

As I stood in the cathedral, mass was being celebrated. 
Two hundred women, dressed all in black, with black 
shawls over their heads, knelt on the stone floor. Sprinkled 
among them were patches of colour made by the Indian 
men, who wore ponchos of red, blue, or yellow, and whose 
bare feet were turned up to the roof as they muttered their 
prayers. There were also Indian women in short skirts 
and red shawls, each with a pack or a baby on her back. 

There is no doubt about the religious nature of these 
people of the high Andes. The Quichuas, who are the 
descendants of the subjects of the Incas, are the chief 
churchgoers of Peru. It is they who furnish the chief 
support of the priesthood, and although in direst poverty, 


159 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT ~ 


they give much of what they earn for the maintenance of 
the Church. In travelling through the country I saw a 
little wooden cross rising above the thatched roof of every 
Indian hut, and the services at the cathedral here are at- 
tended by more Indians than whites. Along with their 
worship of Christ and the Virgin Mary they still retain 
many of the ancient ceremonies and beliefs of the Incas. 
They pray facing the sun, and they cross themselves and 
offer a prayer when they approach or leave Cuzco, the 
sacred city of their ancestors. 

Crossing the plaza from the cathedral, I visited the 
portales, or stores, where Indian goods are sold. They 
occupy the ground floors of a block of two-story houses, 
the upper stories of which extend out over the street and 
are upheld by stone columns, forming an arcade. These 
stores are like caves in the wall, and their doorways look 
as though they were cut out with a cross-cut saw. I 
arrived in Cuzco on a saint’s day, when the shops were 
hidden behind thick slabs of wood that come together 
like the folding doors of a barn and are fastened with 
great wrought-iron padlocks centuries old. Single locks 
weigh ten or twenty pounds, and they are so constructed 
that one must use a half-dozen keys to open them. 

All the storekeepers are women. They are fat cholas 
who wear very full skirts and keep their shawls and hats on 
while attending to business. Many of them do some man- 
ufacturing in addition to their selling. Kneeling or sitting 
on the floor, they make various garments with little hand 
sewing machines that they rest on boxes or chairs. 

From these shops I walked around the corner and up a 
narrow street walled with stores that are larger but have 
the same cave-like entrances. One block is called Coca 


160 


AE CULCOI ORT ORD AY 


Street, because every shop on each side of it has bales of 
coca leaves among its wares. These leaves, which are the 
source of our cocaine, are chewed for their narcotic 
effect. I noticed that all of the Indians bought coca, and 
that most of them had quids of these leaves in their cheeks 
at the time. 

Going on, I passed an ancient fountain where Jndian 
house servants were filling their water jars. This foun- 
tain represents a young girl with what looks like a chrysan- 
themum over her head, on the top of whichisacross. The 
figure is nude and out of the breasts pour two continuous 
streams of water. 

A little farther on I stopped to look at the market. 
Half of the plaza where it is located is covered with long 
galvanized iron sheds. Under the sheds are zinc coun- 
ters upon which meat is spread out for sale, and farther 
on are sheds for vegetables, where the Indian women sit 
on the stones with their wares piled around them. Still 
farther on are sheds for fruits, and in the open spaces out 
in the sun llama droppings and charcoal are being sold as 
fuel. There are other peddlers here and there, and 
scattered about are cook shops, where the Quichua Indians 
are eating soup and fried stuffs cooked on clay stoves or 
sheet-iron plates. 

I asked as to the prices of the various goods I saw 
and learned that meat costs the same whether it comes 
from a lamb or an old ram, and without regard to the cut. 
Having no scales, the butcher women guess at the weight. 
Neither are vegetables sold by measure, but in piles. The 
usual price per pile is two and one half cents in our money, 
the size varying in accordance with the article. Here isa 
woman selling red peppers, for example. She has before 

161 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


her a cloth covered with piles containing ten each. In the 
next stall are handfuls of green beans, and beside them 
cakes of native cheese the size of a biscuit, which can be 
bought for a nickel. A little farther on a woman is selling 
quinua and kernels of corn half as long as one’s finger. 
The corn is of many colours and varieties. Some is as 
black as my boots, some bright yellow, and the next pile 
is dark red. Hominy grains as big as the end of my thumb 
are sold wrapped in a cloth that looks like a dirty dish rag. 

[ am interested in the potatoes. Peru is their natural 
home, and the great-great-great-grandfathers of all our 
potatoes were born on this high plateau of the. Andes. 
The tubers are of all sizes; some are as big as my fist, 
others no bigger than a thimble. They are equally varied 
in colour—black, red, and yellow. I see also much chujio 
being sold. Chujio looks like bits of bleached bone, but 
is really potatoes that have been frozen and dried so that 
they can be kept for years without spoiling. It is pre- 
pared from a special variety of potatoes about the size of 
a baseball. They are first soaked in water overnight. 
Early in the morning, before the sun rises, they are taken 
out and allowed to freeze. They are then covered with 
straw to keep off the sun. The next night they are soaked 
and frozen again. This process is continued from night 
to night until the potatoes become soft, when the Indians 
tread off the skins with their bare feet. The potatoes 
are now as white as snow, and after being dried will keep 
a long time. They have to be soaked before cooking 
and are usually served in a soup or a stew. Sometimes 
they are sliced and eaten as sandwiches with cheese be- 
tween the slices. | have eaten chuvio made into stew, but 
found it insipid. Perhaps it might have been more 

162 


Under the portales facing the plaza where executions formerly took 
place, are the cave-like stores where fat chola women sell all sorts of wares, 
many of them native goods made on the spot. 


The streets of Cuzco, where one now sees stolid Indians and plodding 
donkeys, have witnessed stirring scenes in the past, when the Spanish 
conquerors practised barbaric cruelties to hold the fallen Incas in sub- 
mission, 


THE GUZCOVOFR/1O-DAY 


appetizing to me had I not seen so frequently how it was 
prepared. 

It is interesting to watch the market women. The 
cholas wear straw hats and shawls, and skirts that reach 
almost to the ankles. They have lighter complexions 
than the full-blooded Indians. The latter women have 
hats like pie pans, with upturned brims and low crowns. 
They wear also shawls of red, blue, yellow, or black, and 
embroidered waists and voluminous skirts that stand out 
like those our girls wore in the days of wire petticoats. 
They carry bundles on their backs and often babies on 
the tops of the bundles. 

There are hundreds of Indian men walking through the 
market, buying and selling. They have flat round hats 
with upturned brims, underneath which are bright- 
coloured knit caps with ear flaps that hang down to their 
necks. Some of the Indians are driving llamas loaded 
with goods, and some carry on their shoulders great packs 
containing vegetables and other products that they have 
brought in from far away in the country. The whole 
scene is one of bright colours, but it is not noisy, and the 
people are apathetic and dull. They talk in low tones, 
and they seem very timid. When I point my camera at 
them the women hide their faces and the children howl and 
go off on the run. 

One of the odd sights of ae market, and also of the 
streets throughout Cuzco, is the traffic and the way 
freight is carried. Nearly everything comes in from the 
country on donkeys, mules, or llamas, or on the backs of 
men and women. There are not more than a half dozen 
automobiles in the city, and most people go about on foot 
or on horse- or mule-back. When I arrived in Cuzco on 

163 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


a former visit to Peru, the station master had been in- 
structed by the superintendent of the railroad to see 
that I got to my hotel, and as | had a great deal 
of baggage I asked him to hire a carriage. He replied 
that there were no carriages in Cuzco, but that we could 
take the street car, while my typewriter and trunks 
could be carried on the backs of Indian cargadores. | 
found the street car to be a long box resting on wheels, 
with a team of four shaggy mules as the motive power. 
There were a half dozen such cars, each with its separate 
team, and they were so crowded that I was barely able 
to get standing room. The cars ran only to the trains, 
which arrived and departed three times a week, so that if 
one could get a ride a day he was lucky. It was about a 
mile and a half from the railroad depot to the main 
plaza, and our mules went on the gallop. 

My hotel is run on the European plan, and I am able to 
get two good rooms at a reasonable rate. We take our meals 
at a hotel that faces the great plaza and the cathedral. The 
entrance to this house is a cave-like passageway through 
evil-smelling and dirty courts, and it is only when I| reach 
the dining room that I dare to cease holding my nose. 
Once there, the accommodations are fair. The food is 
Peruvian, but the eggs are fresh and the meats are good. 
The landlord tries to please, and his price for three meals is 
low. 

Altogether, | am delighted with Cuzco. The sky is 
blue, the sun is bright, and the surroundings full of in- 
terest. On one hand are the quaintness of the present 
city and the strange costumes of the Indians, and on the 
other are the ruins of the Incas and the romance of a 
civilization that has passed away. 

164 


CHAPTERIEX TX 
STORIES OF BURIED TREASURE 


HAVE heard stories of buried treasure all along the 

Andes from Panama to southern Peru. The Incas 

had vast stores of gold and silver that for four cen- 

turies white men have been attempting to recover. 
Only a few weeks ago I met a party of Americans and 
British in Cerro de Pasco who were prospecting for one of 
these hoards. They had already spent thousands of dol- 
lars, and were spending more every day. 

I heard other stories at Urcos, a little mud town on the 
railroad just south of Cuzco. It is high up in the Andes, 
more than two miles above the sea, and not far from Lake 
Urcos, in which: Inca treasures are said to be buried. 
When the Spaniards under Pizarro had killed the Inca 
king, Atahualpa, they marched upon Cuzco. The Indians 
knew the Spaniards’ greed for precious metals, and they 
took most of their treasures from the capital city and 
buried them. According to tradition, they threw millions 
of dollars’ worth of gold into this lake, among other things 
the great golden chain that surrounded their main plaza. 
This plaza was about five hundred feet long and several 
hundred feet wide, so that the length of the chain was 
probably nearly two thousand feet. It was made of pure 
gold, wrought into links about a foot long and as large 
around as my wrist. The links were so heavy that a man 
could not lift more than one of them at a time, and hun- 

165 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


dreds of Indians were required to carry the chain to the 
lake. It is supposed to lie there to this day, although 
many have searched for it in vain. The treasure hunters 
have dived into the waters and have raked over the mud 
near the shore. They have also used grappling hooks to 
drag the bottom, which in places lies hundreds of feet 
below the surface. At one time a syndicate, capitalized 
at five million dollars, was organized to tunnel the moun- 
tain-side and drain the lake in order to get at the gold. 
The difficulties encountered were so many, however, that 
the enterprise was abandoned. 

All the ornaments and the utensils used in the religious 
ceremonies of the Incas were made of gold or silver. In 
the Temple of the Sun were golden ewers that held the 
water used at the time of sacrifices; and there were twelve 
silver jars kept filled with Indian corn. There was a 
golden llama with golden fleece, and also golden birds 
and golden flowers, all of life size. 

The Spaniards found a vast amount of gold in the ceme- 
teries of the Incas, the precious metal having been buried 
with many of the monarchs. There is a record of one 
Garcia Gutierrez paying to the Spanish crown one fifth 
of the treasures he found in the graveyards at Trujillo, 
which netted him more than six hundred and seventy- 
seven thousand castellanos of gold. Gold and silver 
plates have been found fastened to the heads of mummies 
and skeletons dug up in the excavations at Tiahuanaco in 
Bolivia. 

The building of the great cathedral in Cuzco is said to 
have been brought about by the discovery of Inca treasure. 
According to the legend, it began with a miraculous dream 
of the bishop, in which the Virgin Mary appeared before 

166 


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stone arch. 


Whether the Inca kings, or perhaps a race of giants, had this huge slide 
carved out of the granite for the amusement of their children, or whether 
it occurred naturally, no one knows, but it still furnishes sport for the 
youths of Cuzco. 


STORIES OF BURIED TREASURE 


him and told him that she wanted a cathedral in Cuzco. 
She fixed the location on the ancient plaza of the Incas 
and described the building as it now is. The bishop re- 
plied that his people were poor, and that he could not 
possibly raise the sum needed. Thereupon the Madonna 
directed him to go to a place near Cuzco and dig. This 
was duly reported to the people, who, as the story goes, 
went with the bishop in a great procession to the spot 
designated. They dug down into the earth and there 
found a large store of gold. It was with this gold that 
they began to build the cathedral, which is, as I have said, 
one of the finest churches in the new world. 

A second story of lost treasure relates to a Cuzco man 
of Spanish descent whom the Lord blessed with numerous 
children. It is the custom here that a godfather shall 
look after and provide for his godchild; and so, as this 
man was poor, he tried to add to his resources by having a 
corps of good godfathers. As the infants were born, he 
named each in honour of one of the distinguished citizens 
of the town. The citizens, however, did not respond, and 
the man grew poorer and poorer. At last he had nine 
children, each of whom had a rich godfather, but there was 
no help forthcoming. The father then vowed that he 
would choose as the patron of his next child the first man 
he met on the street after its birth. In due time the 
stork came again, and the father, rushing out of the house, 
saw a poor Indian driving a caravan of llamas into the 
town. He stopped him and asked him to be godfather to 
the child. The Indian objected, saying that he was poor 
and not fit to be godfather to a white child. The man 
then told him of his vow and finally persuaded the Indian 
to accept the honour. 

167 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


When the baby was baptized, the Indian appeared at 
the ceremony as its godfather, and the next day came 
back into Cuzco with a score of llamas loaded with wood. 
He took the wood to the father of his godchild, saying that 
he had brought what he could as a gift. He was thanked 
and the wood was stored away in the court of the house. 
Some time after that the bundles of sticks and roots were 
opened, and inside each was found a bag of gold in nuggets 
and dust. In the meantime, the Indian had disappeared 
and could not be found. The-Spaniard took the gold and 
built two large houses on the street called Triumph, 
which the people of Cuzco will show you to-day. 

Another treasure story is the tale of an Indian woman 
one hundred years old. It relates toa great hoard of gold 
that was hidden in the Andes by an Indian chief, who was 
murdered on his way back to Cuzco. It had long been 
searched for in vain by both foreigners and Peruvians. 
Not long ago this old Indian woman, being about to die, 
sent word to a ha endado of Spanish descent for whom she 
had worked, asking him to hasten to her. He reached 
her hut in the mountains just in time to get her last mes- 
sage. This was that her maternal grandmother, who had 
died eighty years before, had given her a word that would 
indicate where the treasure lay. The word was an Indian 
one meaning the Lake of the Two Stones. The old woman 
was questioned, but she would tell nothing more, and that 
night she died. The whole country was searched by 
treasure hunters, all seeking the Lake of the Two Stones. 
At last a narrow valley was discovered containing a lake 
in which there were two tall rocks rising out of the water. 
The lake was drained, and the treasure was found in a 
chamber under the largest stone. The discovery was kept 

108 


STORIES OF BURIED TREASURE 


a secret from the officials for fear of confiscation, and so 
no one knows how much gold was discovered. It is said 
to have been of such great value that it made wealthy all 
those who participated in finding it. 

Still another Indian legend tells the story of a treasure 
cave in a mountain near Cuenca in Ecuador. This cave 
contains a mighty store of gold, but its entrance is closed 
by a giant of granite under whose arm is a hole that is 
open only on Good Friday. Then, and then only, the 
giant raises his arm, and whoever is there at that time can 
crawl in under it. As the story goes, the gold is in piles, 
and only one pile is to be taken at atime. If aman takes 
only the assigned quantity he will get away safely. But 
if he is greedy and takes more he will be squeezed to death 
by the arm of the giant as he goes out. The Indians have 
great faith in this story, and many superstitious people 
have looked for the cave, hoping to reach it in time for 
Good Friday. 

A fairly well-authenticated tradition refers to an Inca 
named Ruminagui, who is said to have carried away the 
gold and silver of Quito and buried it. This treasure was 
taken from the palaces of Atahualpa and from the temples 
and the convents of the virgins of the sun. It is said that 
some of the gold was intended to be sent to Cajamarca for 
Atahualpa’s ransom, but that Ruminagul, anticipating 
the treachery of the Spaniards, buried the treasure onthe 
way. News of what he had done came to the Spaniards, 
and Sebastian de Benalcazar, one of the subordinate 
officers under Pizarro, took one hundred and fifty men 
and started for Quito. He searched along the route 
followed by Ruminagui, but found nothing. 

In the meantime, Ruminagui had dug traps in the trails 


169 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


and made snares to destroy the enemy and their horses in 
case he was followed. Also, in order to save them from 
the Spaniards, he had set fire to Quito and killed the virgins 
of the sun before Benalcazar appeared. He then climbed to 
a high mountain behind the city, where he was finally 
captured by Benalcazar. He was tortured to make him 
tell where the golden hoard was secreted, but refused to 
talk, even though finally put to death. 

An Indian boy named Catuna, the son of one of the 
Inca chiefs, who was with his father at the time this hoard 
was secreted, was injured in one of the battles and left as 
dead. Captain Suarez, a Spaniard, later discovered that 
Catuna was still alive, and took the boy home with him. 
Catuna’s injuries were so severe that his features were dis- 
torted and he became a hunchback. Captain Suarez 
taught him to read and write, and converted him to 
Christianity. 

Later, Suarez became unfortunate in his speculations, 
and his house was about to be sold to satisfy his creditors. 
Then Catuna said that he would produce enough gold to 
pay off the debts if he were given some equipment for 
smelting. He also made Suarez promise to say nothing 
as to the source of any sudden wealth. This was agreed 
to, and Catuna, working in a secret vault under the house, 
supplied so much treasure that Suarez became a rich man. 
He gave large sums to the Church, and when he died in 
1550 he made Catuna his heir. When questioned as to 
where the money came from, Catuna said that he had made 
a compact with the evil one, to whom he had sold his 
soul for this gold. This statement was credited, because 
at that time the Indians were believed to have regular 
intercourse with the devil. 

170 


STORIES OF BURIED TREASURE 


After Catuna’s death his home was searched and the 
vault discovered. It contained a large quantity of gold in 
ingots and bars, and also in vessels of gold that evidently 
came from the Incas. The people, however, persisted in 
believing that the story of the pact with the devil was 
true, ‘‘and,”’ says Father Velasco, from whose letters this 
story comes, “‘the truth would have never been discovered 
if it had not been that Catuna’s confessor, a Franciscan 
monk, had left a written account of the burial of Ata- 
hualpa’s treasure, which had been told to him.” ? 

I heard a story in Cuzco of an Indian girl who was in love 
with a Spaniard, and who told him that she would make 
him the richest man in Peru if he would marry her. He 
promised that he would if she would prove that she could 
do what she proposed. At her request, he went with her 
one night into the mountains, where he was blindfolded and 
led through ravine after ravine. They finally reached a 
cave where the bandages were removed from his eyes, and 
his sweetheart said: 

“Behold! There is the gold that I am ready to give 
you when we are married.” 

The Spaniard looked down and saw a great pile of golden 
bars and a collection of golden vessels curiously carved, 
probably from the treasures of Atahualpa. He attempted. 
to seize some of the largest pieces near him, but the girl 
pulled him back, saying: 

“Those things are sacred until we are wedded, and if 
you attempt to touch any of them or take away any, my 
friends who are here at hand will certainly kill you.” 

The Spaniard, becoming frightened, threw down the gold 
and submitted again to being blindfolded. Upon his 
return to Cuzco he told the story to the authorities and 


171 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


an order was issued for the arrest of the girl. The police 
hastened to her hut, but were too late. The girl and her 
family, hearing of the proposed arrest, had fled to the 
mountains, and that was the last ever known of the 
treasure. 

There are records left by the Spaniards describing several 
localities where they thought some of the Inca treasures 
might be found. One such record is in the writings of 
Valverde, who died in Spain. He was known to have 
gone many times into the mountains of Ecuador and to 
have brought out a great quantity of gold, the form of 
which showed it to have been a part of the treasures of 
Atahualpa. 

Valverde left directions giving the route to where the 
gold lay, and the King of Spain sent this description to 
Ambato, a town now on the railroad between the coast 
and Quito, ordering the officers there to search for the 
treasure. The manuscript of the king’s letter, which | 
understand is still preserved, tells the searcher to stand on 
the mountain of Guapa, with his back to Ambato, and 
look to the east. From there can be seen three mountains 
in the form of a triangle surrounding an artificial lake, into 
which the ancients, when they heard of the death of the 
Inca king, threw the gold they had prepared for his ran- 
som. The Spanish directions then tell one just how to 
get there and the dangers he is liable to incur on the way. 
He is supposed to reach a bog in which is gold that can be 
washed out in a stream near by, and still farther on is said 
to be a cave in which is a furnace where the Indians melted 
their ores. Many have searched for this treasure, but it 
has never been found. 

A treasure hoard that really existed was found on the 


172 


STORIES OF BURIED TREASURE 


farm of a Spaniard who had built a wide and apparently 
unnecessary adobe wall between two of his fields. Before 
he died he left strict injunctions that the land on which 
this wall was built was never to go out of the possession of 
his family. Years passed, and the great-great-grandson 
who had inherited this piece of land finally offered it for 
sale in order to raise money to meet his debts. The 
descendant of another branch of the family, remembering 
the story of his ancestor’s last instructions, bought the 
property and immediately put all his peons at work de- 
molishing the wall, long an eyesore to the neighbourhood. 
Under it were found bars of gold and silver amounting to 
many times the value of the property. 

The finding of treasure in old buildings led many people 
to tear down their houses and devote much time and ex- 
pense to searching for secret chambers and passages that 
might conceal untold wealth. One man, who actually 
discovered such a passage, found that it ended in a brick 
wall, which he assumed to be the outside of a treasure 
vault that had been closed up years before. Working in 
great secrecy, he pried the bricks out one by one, and at. 
last saw a large room filled with silver vases, candlesticks, 
beautiful china, and linens exquisitely embroidered. In 
his great excitement he failed entirely to notice that every- 
thing was spick and span and in the finest condition, and 
it was only when a woman entered through a hitherto un- 
noticed door that he discovered that he had merely chis- 
elled his way through the wall of his neighbour’s house 
into his pantry. 


173 


CHAPTER XX 
SLAVES OF ALCOHOL AND COCAINE 


T THE time of the Spanish conquest it is estimated 
that there were between twenty and forty mil- 
lions of semi-civilized Indians on the high plateau 
of the Andes. There were the Chibchas in Colom- 
bia, the Caras and Chancas in Ecuador, the Quichuas in 
Peru, the Aymards in Bolivia, and farther south in Chile 
the brave Araucanians. The Chibchas were skilled in weav- 
ing and making pottery. They had learned to pave their 
highways, and had developed their farming to a high degree 
of productivity. They had weights and measures, and a 
currency of gold disks. The Caras had attained an ad- 
vanced civilization, with a military and a tribal organiza- 
tion, and the Araucanians met in grand councils to make 
laws and settle matters of public interest. The Aymaras, 
the chief race of Bolivia, ranked in progress with the 
Quichuas. To-day, the majority of the Quichuas are as 
miserable and degraded as any human beings on earth. 
Not one in a hundred can read or write. They are mere 
hewers of wood and drawers of water, slaves to the coca 
leaf and alcohol. They are a race from which active 
mentality seems to have departed, and have shrunk in 
numbers from eight millions in 1575 to a bare million and 
a half. 
I saw the Quichuas first in the high valleys of Ecuador, 
and found them everywhere as I went through Peru. | 


174 


Past oppression, combined with his addiction to alcohol and coca chew- 
ing, has degraded the Indian of the plateau until he has become a dull, 
apathetic being, desperately poor, and without curiosity, ambition, or hope. 


Like the aborigines of our own Southwest, the Indians of the Peruvian 
plateau are capable pottery makers, although their sense of colour 1s 
ereater than their understanding of drawing and decoration. 


The Indian market women sit all day long on the cobble paving with 
their wares heaped about them. Weights and measures are unknown to 
them and they sell fruits and vegetables “by the pile.” 


SLAVES OF ALCOHOL AND COCAINE 


have seen them toiling along the trails with enormous 
loads on their backs, or driving their laden llamas and 
donkeys to the markets of the cities. In the towns | 
have watched them sitting on the stone pavements of the 
plazas with their little stores of vegetables spread out 
before them, or carrying barrels of water and other burdens 
from house to house as the servants of the cholos and the 
whites. 

In my trips to South America I have not had time to 
make an exhaustive study of the Quichuas, but I have 
obtained much information about them from men who 
have lived in these countries for years. I have talked 
with plantation owners and mining operators, with teachers 
and missionaries, and, in fact, with scores who employ 
Indians or are otherwise interested in them. An extreme 
view of their condition was given me by an American 
mining official, who is a man of keen observation. He said: 

“Most of the Quichuas of the plateau appear to lack 
ordinary intelligence. If you tell one to fetch you a broom, 
he will bring you a shovel. If you send him for a hatchet, 
he will, as likely as not, return with a glass of water. If 
you knock him down and make him go back, the shock 
starts his brain working and he may then get what you 
asked for.” 

Another American, who has been here for many years, 
tells me that the Indian boys are intelligent until they 
reach the age of fifteen. They acquire the coca habit al- 
most at birth, but they do not take to alcohol until they 
begin to work independently of their parents and can 
afford to buy liquor for themselves. From then on they 
deteriorate, and they are on the down grade for the rest 
of their lives. 


175 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


I believe that the cause of the mental degradation of 
the Quichua is due somewhat to oppression by the whites, 
but more to the use of alcohol and coca. Coca has been 
chewed by the Andean Indians since the days of the Incas, 
when any feat of strength or endurance was attributed to 
its use. In athletic contests the victor’s reward was a 
coca pouch woven in brilliant colours, the handiwork of an 
Indian maiden. Accompanying it was a small gourd con- 
taining lime or ashes to enhance the flavour of the coca. 
It was always a part of the equipment of the soldier on 
the march, and distances between different parts of the 
Inca Empire were often reckoned as so many handfuls of 
coca, meaning the amount of leaves necessary to sustain a 
man in making the trip. According to one writer of that 
period, 

Three leaves supply for six days’ march afford. 


The Quitoita with this provision stor’d 
Can pass the vast and cloudy Andes o’er. 


Coca was used also as an offering to the sun and to make 
smoke at sacrifices. One of the Inca ceremonies was to 
throw it into a river and allow it to float downstream, 
while parties of Indians kept pace with it on the banks for 
days. So that a man could have it to chew in the next 
world, pouches of it were usually buried with the dead. 

Every farmer gives his Indian labourers a handful of 
coca leaves each morning, and every mine owner has to 
supply a certain amount in addition to the regular wages 
paid. The full effect of the cocaine is obtained by rubbing 
the leaves between the palms to remove the tiny branches, 
chewing them into a ball, and then adding a small amount 
of lime, which is sold in the markets in the form of little 
cakes. The Indian not only chews coca, but he often 


170 


a 


SLAVES OF ALCOHOL AND COCAINE 


brews from it a tea that he says he takes for his stomach’s 
sake, but really for its effect as a stimulant. 

Coca drives away hunger and makes one feel the cold 
less. It enables one to breathe with greater ease in the 
high altitudes of the Andes, and it is claimed that by using 
it the Indians can work longer and endure more fatigue. 
| am told that chewing it also keeps the teeth white, and it 
is said that the Quichuas seldom suffer from toothache. 
Whatever its temporary effect may be, coca also numbs 
the brain, destroys the will, and dulls all forms of mental 
activity. 

Coca leaves come from a shrub that grows from four to 
six feet in height. They are picked green, dried, and put 
up in packages of twenty-five pounds each, which sell for 
about two dollars and a half. I bought ten cents’ worth 
at one of the stores of Cuzco. The woman who waited 
upon me brought out a pair of old brass scales, balanced 
on the end of a beam, and weighed out a full pound. [| 
took it home and chewed some, but it had no perceptible 
effect, probably because I had not the lime to go with it. 
I then made some into a tea, which made me feel very re- 
freshed. 

As to alcohol, the extent to which it is used among the 
Indians is beyond conception. Drunken men and women 
by the score may be seen at any celebration, and in every 
part of the country Indians with red faces and bleared eyes 
go reeling along the roads. The women drink quite as 
much as the men, and on holidays both sexes give them- 
selves up to drunken carousals. 

During my stay in Cuzco I went into some of the alcohol 
stores, and was astounded at the vast quantities sold. 
There was a wholesale and retail liquor establishment 


177 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


just opposite my hotel. The storeroom facing the street 
was walled with tanks, each twice as high as a man and as 
large around as a boiler. I counted twelve such tanks 
standing upon platforms against the wall of that room. 
Each was marked as containing two thousand litres of 
alcohol, and when I tapped upon them with my knife | 
found they were full. That meant more than twenty- 
four thousand quarts. Every tank had its faucet, and the 
liquor was drawn out by the gallon, the litre, or the bottle. 

The storekeeper seemed proud of his business, and told 
me that he made a million and a half pounds of liquor 
every year. He sells it tothe Indians for about ten dollars 
a quintal, or one hundred pounds, and ships it to other 
towns throughout the province. He told me that the 
hacienda Pachacha, where the brandy is made, consists 
of four great farms ninety miles from Cuzco, and requires 
from eight hundred to one thousand Indian families to 
work it. Going into a court, I saw the goatskins, contain- 
ing one hundred pounds each, in which the liquor 1s brought 
from the plantation. When I drank some it burned my 
throat like liquid fire, and as I remarked upon its strength 
the shopkeeper took a gauge and showed me that it was 
fifty-three per cent. pure alcohol. 

I saw other alcohol stores in Sicuani, and there are 
scores of them in Arequipa and in almost all the towns of 
the mountain districts. The Indian usually buys his 
liquor by the bottle, the number of which is limited only 
by the amount of money he has. 

In addition to alcohol, the Indians—men, women, and 
children—drink chicha, made from corn. It is for sale in 
the stores, and may be obtained at wayside saloons every- 
where in the mountains of Peru. The first step in the 

178 


Market day in the mountain towns affords a colourful spectacle. The 
Indians frequently travel thirty or forty miles for the occasion, although 
their total sales or purchases may amount to no more than a few cents. 


The usual home of the plateau Indian is a rude hut of adobe or plastered 
stone, containing practically no furniture. The chief work of the women, 
cooking and weaving, is done out of doors. 


Ownership of a few llamas gives the farmer means of getting his prod- 
ucts to market, and also furnishes him coarse wool for making rough 
cloth, while their droppings provide fuel in a land of almost no wood. 


SLAVES OF ALCOHOL AND COCAINE 


manufacture of chicha is to put the kernels of ripe corn 
into tanks in the earth. The corn is then sprinkled with 
water and covered with straw. It is kept wet until it 
swells and sprouts, after which it is taken out and boiled 
foratime. The liquid begins to ferment in a day or two, 
and is soon ready to drink. 

I am told that the old-fashioned way of making chicha 
still prevails in some villages. By that method the Indian 
girls shell off the ripe grains and grind them between their 
teeth, working their jaws until the saliva flows freely. 
When chewed sufficiently the saliva-soaked meal 1s ejected 
into a wooden trough. The spittle starts fermentation, 
and after a short time the mush, with some water added, 
has turned to a liquor with a high percentage of alcohol. 
It is said that this is the most intoxicating form of chicha 
known, and that its manufacture dates back to the days 
of the Incas. Kava, the intoxicating drink of the Samoas, 
is made in a similar way. 

As I see how the Indians live and work on these cold 
highlands of the Andes, I do not wonder that they are 
driven to coca and alcohol. Their homes are huts made 
of mud, so rude and squalid that in the United States they 
would hardly be considered fit for a cow stable or a hog 
pen. The typical dwelling is about eight or ten feet wide 
and perhaps ten or fifteen feet long, and it is so low that 
as an average-sized man stands outside it his head reaches 
above where the sloping roof begins. It has walls of sod 
or mud, and its roof is of straw tied to poles. It has no 
windows, and the only door is a hole in the wall so low 
that one has to stoop to goin. There is no furniture, al- 
though some of the huts have a mud ledge at the back, 
upon which the family sleeps at night. Usually, however, 


179 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


grown-ups and children lie down on the ground on llama 
skins and huddle together to keep warm. They sleep in 
the same clothing they wear in the daytime, covering them- 
selves with coarse blankets. Often the chickens and some- 
times the hogs sleep in the hut with the family. The 
Americans who employ large numbers of Indians at Cerro 
de Pasco and furnish quarters for them at a low rent have 
to order the hogs cleared out of the huts every few weeks. 

Meals are cooked on a little clay stove in one corner of 
the house. The fuel is the droppings of llamas and cattle, 
peat, or the stunted vegetation of the pampas. There is 
no chimney, and the smoke blackens the roof of the hut and 
escapes through the door. The Indians exist on a limited 
diet, consisting of mutton or llama meat and potatoes, bar- 
ley, chuiio, or corn, which they soak and cook as a stew. 

Most of the farms and the haciendas on the Andean 
plateau are owned by the whites or the cholos. Some of the 
estates are so large that one may ride all day across them 
without reaching the boundaries. On all of them are large 
numbers of Indians who lease patches of ground on such 
terms as make them practically the slaves of the owners. 

| have had a long talk with a hacendado who owns al- 
most three hundred thousand acres of land near Cusipata, 
in the province of Paucartambo. He spends only a part 
of the summer there, and lives for the rest of the year in 
Cuzco. He talked freely of conditions on his hacienda, 
looking upon the practical enslavement of the Indians as 
a matter of course. 

‘“Tand here is cheap,” he said. ‘The estate at Cusi- 
pata cost me only about four cents an acre when I bought 
it some years ago. Including the livestock, I paid only 
twenty thousand. soles, or about ten thousand dollars, for 

180 


“SLAVES OF ALCOHOL AND COCAINE 


the property. The highest land, which runs up to sixteen 
thousand feet above the sea, is suitable only for pasture. 
I have big flocks of alpacas and llamas, and about eight 
thousand sheep, as well as cattle and horses and donkeys. 
I have also some land as low as ten thousand feet, upon 
which barley, potatoes, quinua, and other crops can be 
grown. 

“The most important asset on the property, however, 
is the Indians. It is valued, not according to its area, but 
by the number of families of Indians who have homes 
upon it and are therefore obliged to work for me. If it 
were not for the Indians living on the estate, I could get 
no one to work my land. Therefore, I hold them by 
keeping them more or less in debt tome. | advance money 
for the purchase of cattle, llamas, and alpacas, and for 
feast days and marriages and funerals The only way 
an Indian can get out of debt to me would be by finding 
some other proprietor to assume his obligation. In that 
case he could move, but he would be only going from one 
master to another. 

“Some of the Indians are in debt only enitey or forty 
dollars, and others owe as much as three hundred dollars. 
I loan them money according to the value of their stock, 
being careful not to let them have more than the animals 
would bring at forced sale. One of my Indians owns four 
hundred alpacas, and some own sheep and cattle to a value 
of three or four hundred and even a thousand dollars. 
Such men work on the same conditions as the others, and 
do not live any differently. 

“According to my contracts, every Indian man has to 
work for me five days of each week, which leaves only 
Saturday and Sunday for himself, with the exception of 

181 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


holidays and saints’ days. He receives no wages except 
an ounce and a half of cocaa day. That is about a hand- 
ful, and it costs only four cents a week per man. It is 
also agreed that each of the three Indian villages on the 
farm shall furnish me a man-servant, or pongo, and a 
woman-servant to work in my house or for someone else if I 
direct. The pongoes are changed from month to month, 
and a new one is always on hand before the old one leaves. 

“The Indians also agree not to trade with a stranger 
without my permission, and to give me the first chance to 
buy anything they sell. As a rule, they will not do busi- 
ness with any one else under any circumstances, not even 
if the prices offered were ten times what I pay. In return 
for the use of pasture land, the Indians also give me ten 
per cent. of the increase of their flocks and herds. At 
certain times of the year all the sheep and the cattle must 
be branded and counted in order that I may collect my 
share of the stock. 

“ My estate is fifty-four miles from Cuzco, and the In- 
dians who own llamas must take the products to that town 
or to anywhere else I may direct. For the trip to Cuzco 
I pay them two dollars for 2750 pounds, and furnish their 
food for the journey. It takes them about a week to go 
to Cuzco and back, and they sleep at night on the road. 
I allow the Indians to keep as many llamas as they please, 
for every animal adds to the freight-carrying facilities of 
my property.” 

‘But doesn’t this method of carrying crops to markets 
so cheaply compete with the railroads?” I asked. 

“Of course it does,’ replied the hacendado. ‘“‘Why 
should I use the railroad to market my crops when I can 
have my Indians do it for practically nothing? 1 would 

182 


Every male citizen of Peru is entitled to go to the polls when a president 
is being elected, but a large element of the population, especially in the 
interior, 1s unqualified to pass such simple tests as we require of our 
voters. 


Because of the great altitude of Lake Titicaca, only a few crops, such as 
potatoes and barley, can be raised on its shores, and scarcely enough of 
these to feed the scanty population. 


—_ . 
re 


om 


SLAVES OF ALCOHOL AND COCAINE 


not give a centavo to have a railroad go through my estate. 
If it did, my family and I would be the only ones to use it. 
If I send my goods to market on the backs of llamas, it 
takes a little longer, but if the weight is short when they 
reach their destination the Indian is responsible. Suppose 
I ship a hundred pounds of barley to Cuzco by rail and it 
arrives four pounds short. I could not get damages from 
the railroad, but I could compel the Indian to make up the 
deficit. He is responsible for everything he carries, and 
if he should break a plate or a glass in the load of goods he 
brings me he has to pay for it.” 

“But how can you force the Indians to submit to such 
treatment?” 

“They have been used to it for generations and have 
never known anything else. Besides, we can punish 
them in various ways. For small offenses we can lock 
them up in a barn for a couple of days on a water diet. 
We can also whip them for stealing, provided we are 
careful not to let the authorities hear of what we are doing, 
or we can make them come to Cuzco to work as pongoes. 
Sometimes the Indians are badly treated, and I know of an 
instance on my own farm where an Indian was hanged to 
the top of a eucalyptus tree by a rope tied under his arms, 
and left there for two hours. If the overseer had been 
found out, he would have gone to jail for two or three years. 
Justice, however, 1s more in favour of the master than the 
servant in this part of the world, and although the laws 
to protect the Indian are fairly good, he has little chance in 
the courts if one of the higher classes is the defendant.” 

“But if the man works five days for you, how is he to 
take care of his own crops and to watch his cattle and 
sheep?” I asked. 

183 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


“That is done by his wife and children,” was the reply. 
“The children learn to herd sheep and cattle almost as 
soon as they are able to walk, and the women hoe the crops. 
The men help on Saturday and Sunday. All the Indian 
women work, wives being selected as much for strength as 
for beauty. They do their own weaving and make all the 
clothes for the family. 

“On my farm the men do not start working much before 
eight o’clock. They take things easy, and at ten knock 
off for a half hour’s rest during which they chew coca. 
They then go back to work until one o’clock, when they 
take an hour to eat the lunch that they bring with them. 
At four o’clock they have another rest of a half hour for 
coca chewing, and shortly after that they stop for the day 
and go home. By the time it is dark they are asleep.” 

In further conversation, this man told me something of 
the Indian villages and how they are governed. He says 
the estate owner controls the Indians almost entirely 
through the village officials, who are selected anew each 
year. Each town has a native alcalde, or mayor, who, as 
a sign of authority, carries a cane as big around as a base- 
ball bat, decorated with silver ornaments. Subordinate 
to him are two other officers with smaller canes. It is 
the business of these men to punish offenses, pass upon 
disputes, and administer justice. In addition, each village 
has a mandon, through whom the proprietor gives his 
orders, and who is a kind of overseer. This office is greatly 
coveted by the Indians. 

| asked some questions as to education among these 
people, and was told that sometimes the children attend the 
public schools in the towns, but that practically none go 
to school in the remote districts. It is difficult to establish 

184 


el i i 


ee ee ee 


a ae en ee 


SLAVES OF ALCOHOL AND COCAINE 


a school on an estate far away from the railroad. It has 
to be done through the minister of public instruction, who 
has a representative in every province. This requires 
money, time, trouble, and influence, and the majority 
of the landholders are not interested. Most of them pre- 
fer ignorant and submissive labourers to intelligent and 
independent ones, saying that it is the educated Indian who 
causes most of the trouble. One of the hacendados told 
me that he found the men who had been in the army the 
most difficult to control, and that he wanted his Indians 
as workers and not as students. 

There are many provinces, however, where the Indians 
work only two or three days a week for the use of their 
houses and lands, and in some they are also paid a small 
wage for their labour. In other places they have small 
farms of their own and raise stock and crops. Where 
they have come in contact with better conditions, they 
have often cast off entirely the yoke of centuries of op- 
pression. A few of them are rich, and own mines and 
estates. In Lima I met a wealthy Indian who has three 
daughters graduating this year at one of the mission 
schools. The girls have Indian features but are by no 
means unattractive. Their father pays five thousand 
dollars gold a year for the rent of his home in the Peruvian 
capital, and he owns several automobiles. 

In the cities wages have been raised and the lot of the 
native labourer has been bettered by legislation, the women 
and children especially benefitting by laws fixing the num- 
ber of working hours a day. But in the interior, far 
from railways and outside influences, the lot of the 
Quichua Indian is little better than it was a hundred 
years ago. 

185 


CHAPTER XxXI 
ON LAKE TITICACA 


AKE a seat in the airplane of your imagination 

and point its nose toward the sky. Guide yourself 

straight upward until you are almost three miles 

above the level of the sea. Then fly about four 
thousand miles to the south, crossing the Gulf of Mexico 
and the Caribbean Sea, and passing high above the peaks 
of the Andes of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Descend 
only a few hundred feet, and you are on the shores of Lake 
Titicaca, which lies between Peru and Bolivia. It is the 
highest steam-navigated body of water on earth. 

You are as far up in the air as the top of Fujiyama, 
Japan, and about twice as high as Mount Mitchell. You 
are on the shores of an inland sea about half as large as 
Lake Erie, and not far from a snow-clad wall of extinct 
volcanoes. Much of the high plateau that borders the 
lake is thirteen thousand feet above sea level, and the 
elevation of the lake itself is more than twelve thousand 
feet. As I stand here on its shores at Guaqui, Bolivia, 
I seem to be on the very roof of the world. 

Guaqui is at the southern end of Lake Titicaca, not far 
from where the Desaguadero River flows from Titicaca 
into Lake Pampa Aullagas, or, as it is usually known, Lake 
Poopo, about a hundred miles to the southeast. These 
two lakes drain a large part of the Andean plateau. The 
region has a plentiful rainfall, but most of the water comes 

186 


iret et i ea 


ONDLABRE OITICACA 


from the melting snow and glacial ice of the mountains. 
Lake Poopo is probably drained by subterranean channels, 
for although it receives more than two hundred thousand 
cubic feet of water a minute, it has been proved that only 
two thousand feet flow out of it in that time. 

One can get little idea of these lofty bodies of water 
from the encyclopedias and geographies. They are shown 
on the maps as oval in shape, and the usual descriptions 
say that Lake Titicaca is from thirty to sixty miles wide 
and one hundred and thirty miles long. Some authorities 
state that it covers thirty-six hundred square miles, while 
others put the area at more than five thousand square 
miles. The truth is that the lake has never been carefully 
surveyed. Its bays and arms are as many as the tentacles 
of an octopus. The two peninsulas of Huata and Copaca- 
bana stretch out from opposite shores and almost meet, 
dividing the lake into the two sections called by the In- 
dians Titicaca and Winamarca. 

On the peninsula of Copacabana is located the shrine 
of Our Lady of Copacabana. Visitors from all over Peru 
and Bolivia come here throughout the year, although 
August 2 and February 2 are considered the most im- 
portant saints’ days. On those dates the pilgrims arrive 
in a steady procession and include not only the Indians, 
but a few wealthy whites as well. 

Titicaca is so deep that in many parts of it bottom has 
never been reached. In crossing to Guaqui, I went over 
places nine hundred feet deep, and I was told that near 
the Island of the Sun a depth of two thousand feet had 
been found. When stopping at the island the boats have 
to tie up to the rocks on shore, for at that point the lake 
is too deep to use anchors. 

187 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


| came to Lake Titicaca from Cuzco, riding for two 
hundred miles over the plain, with mountains towering 
a mile or more above me. The plateau is so far above the 
sea that twenty-two Washington Monuments resting one 
on top of the other would not equal its altitude. The latter 
part of the trip was over a flat region that once formed 
a portion of the lake bed, and I crossed many streams 
that were winding their way down to this inland sea. As 
I neared Lake Titicaca, the soil became richer, the culti- 
vated patches increased, and the flocks ] saw were larger. 

Puno, the Peruvian port of the lake, is a town of adobe 
buildings roofed with galvanized iron and red tile. An 
American windmill close to the station seemed to wave 
its arms in welcome to me as I arrived. The train carried 
me out on the pier to the steamer, on which I embarked 
for my trip across the lake from Peru to Bolivia. The 
boats leave Puno twice a week at about seven o’clock in the 
evening. One steamer calls at points along the shore 
of the lake, and the other makes a direct run, arriving at 
Guaqui at nine or ten o’clock the next morning. The 
four steamers in service are vessels of from nine hundred 
and fifty to sixteen hundred tons. They have fairly good 
accommodations for passengers, and my little stateroom 
was well ventilated and comfortable. The captain and the 
purser were Peruvians and the sailors Indians. 

These lake boats were made in Europe and sent here 
knocked down, the parts being brought over the railroad 
from Mollendo to Puno, where they were assembled. The 
first boat was put into service on Lake Titicaca before the 
days of the railroad, and was carried up the mountains in 
pieces on the backs of men and mules. 

As we steamed away from the pier and out into the lake, 

188 


ON LAKE TITICACA 


I stayed on deck to watch the shifting landscape. The 
skies above Titicaca were extraordinarily beautiful. The 
clouds rose up from the shores like walls fitting into a vault 
of heavenly blue, and our ship seemed to be shut off from 
the rest of the world. The fleecy white masses were blown 
this way and that by the winds, and the scenes changed 
every moment. It rained just before sunset, and after- 
ward a mighty rainbow spanned the lake. As I looked, 
I thought of the vast treasure vaults of the Andes and 
the gold that may really have been at the two ends of 
that rainbow. A little later the blazing god of the Incas 
dropped below the horizon, painting the sky with a hun- 
dred tints. The gorgeous colours were reflected in the 
waters of the lake, and we sailed through a haze of gold, 
copper, and blue. 

When I arose the next morning the air was so clear that 
I could see for miles. The islands seemed to float upon 
the water, looking like blue balloons rising from a sheet 
of silver rather than the half-submerged summits of the 
highest mountain chain on our hemisphere. One island 
rose out of the lake like a gigantic mushroom of blue 
velvet, and another looked like a huge whale with its head 
and tail high above the water. 

The sides of most of the islands in Lake Titicaca are 
covered with Indian huts and patches of potatoes, quinua, 
and barley. In places the hills are terraced to form great 
steps above the curving shores. On many of the islands 
are ruins of the old Inca civilization. I saw the Island of 
the Sun, or as it is now called, Titicaca, where, according to 
the legend, Manco Ccapac and his sister-wife were set 
down upon earth. The rock where these two Incas landed 
as they dropped from the sky was more sacred to the Incas 


189 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


than Plymouth Rock is to us, and it is still pointed out by 
the Indians. It is said to have been plated with gold and 
kept covered with a veil, and the temples about it were 
decorated with gold. Some authorities say that the name 
“Titicaca”? comes from the Aymara word, “Inticarca,” 
meaning cliff or rock of the sun. On this island, about two 
hundred feet above the level of the lake, is a large spring 
known as the ‘“‘bath of the Incas.” Leading from it to 
the shore is a rough stone stairway along which the water 
runs in a cascading stream bordered by flowers and a few 
overhanging trees. 

The Indians still look with reverence upon the Island 
of the Sun. They once thought that a crop grown upon 
it was blessed by their deity, and the grain raised there was 
considered so precious that it sanctified and preserved all 
others. Therefore, it was carried about over the country, 
and small portions of it were put in the public storehouses. 
It was said that a man whose granary contained even one 
kernel of the sacred Titicaca Island grain would never 
lack for food. The island is now the farm of a wealthy 
Bolivian. 

About six miles from the Island of the Sun is Coati, or 
the Island of the Moon, which was supposed to have been 
the wife of the sun. The Incas built there a great convent 
for the vestal virgins. According to tradition, none could 
be admitted to it except maidens of royal descent who 
from their earliest youth had been trained for that service. 
As the girls reached maturity they were obliged to take an 
oath of perpetual seclusion. Some of the records say 
that not even the emperor was admitted to see them, but 
others allege that they were his secondary wives—in other 
words, his concubines. 


190 


Lying two miles above sea level Lake Titicaca is the highest steam navi- 
gated body of water in the world. On two of its islands, sacred to the sun 
and the moon, the Incas built temples and convents. 


; 
; 
\ 
‘ 
i 
: 


The native craft of Titicaca is the balsa made of bundles of reeds. 


They are practically unsinkable, and when the rushes finally become water- 
logged, the Indians cut fresh ones and build another boat. 


ON LAKE TITICACA 


The ruins of the convent show the traces of many rooms 
surrounding acourt. The building was erected high above 
a series of terraces, the stones in the walls of which were 
put together without cement. They areas perfectly joined 
as those in the fortifications of Sacsahuaman or in the 
temples of Cuzco. 

In going back and forth between these islands and the 
mainland the Indians use boats that are exactly the same 
as those they had when the Spaniards conquered the 
country. These boats, called balsas, are made of tall 
reeds that grow in the lake near the shore. The Indians 
cut off the reeds with a knife on the end of a long pole, and 
bind them into rolls or bundles fifteen or twenty feet long. 
These are then sewed or tied together with strings of 
long grass and form the sides and bottoms of the boats. 

The balsas are shaped likea canoe. They are beautifully 
curved, and their sides are made so that they extend out 
at the top to keep the water from splashing in. Many of 
them are so large that donkeys, llamas, and mules are 
ferried in them along the shore and even across the lake 
from one side to the other. The boats are driven by sails 
also made of reeds, or are pushed through the shallows by 
poles from ten to twenty feet long. When in deep water 
and there is no wind stirring, the Indians use the poles as 
paddles. The balsas are practically unsinkable, which is 
fortunate for their Indian passengers. Because of the 
extreme coldness of the waters of the lake, these natives 
almost never learn to swim. 

The balsa reeds have a cellular pith, like the stem of the 
banana. They are light when dry, but after they have 
been in use about six months they become water-soaked. 
The boats are then no longer safe, and are torn to pieces. 


IQ! 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


The reeds are dried and put into further service as roofing 
on the Indian huts. They are used also for making ropes 
and baskets, and are almost as important to the Titicacans 
as the bamboo is to the Chinese. 

Many of the Indians spend almost all their time in their 
balsas, carrying freight from place to place, or fishing in 
the waters of the lake. Titicaca has two varieties of fish 
that are especially good to eat. One swims in great 
schools and is caught by the Indians in nets. ‘These fish 
are cured in ovens built of little boulders gathered from 
the shores of the lake. The stones are heated until red 
hot and then piled up in alternate layers with the fish. 
After the fish are thoroughly baked and dried, they are 
sent to La Paz and other markets, being eaten chiefly by 
the poorer classes. Fresh fish also are often seen in the 
markets. 

Titicaca has no fish game enough to attract sportsmen. 
Several years ago a movement was started to stock the 
lake with trout, whitefish, and salmon from the United 
States, but it was finally decided that those varieties 
would not thrive here. 

It seems strange to think of fishing and hunting in these 
bleak regions of the high Andes. Nevertheless, I am told 
that millions of ducks nest near Titicaca and Poopo, and 
I know I saw thousands from the deck of my steamer. 
There were teal, snipe, mud hens, and several other varie- 
ties of wild fowl, all so near that I could have shot them 
with my revolver. One of the chief shooting grounds of 
the country is at the mouth of the Desaguadero River, 
and I am told that hunting parties of Americans from La 
Paz often bring down hundreds of ducks in one trip. 

Lake Titicaca is the halfway station on one of the high- 


192 


ON LAKE TITICACA 


roads of traffic from the Pacific to the capital of Bolivia. 
On the wharves of Guaqui are piles of Oregon pine lumber, 
and our lake steamer carried also American-made flour, 
mining machinery, and rolls of paper for the dailies of La 
Paz, together with the boiler of a railroad locomotive. 
The purser of the boat tells me that there is always plenty 
of cargo for the steamers, and that during his last trip he 
took one hundred and twenty thousand pounds of tin 
from Guaqui to Puno. Since the opening of the railway 
from La Paz to the port of Arica on the Pacific coast, 
more than half the freight into Bolivia has been carried 
over that line. 


193 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE TIBET OF SOUTH AMERICA 


HAVE come to a city that is the highest national 

capital in the world and the commercial centre of a 

region that can be compared only to Tibet in Asia. | 

am almost two and a half miles above the sea, and 
from my hotel window | can see the perpetual snows of 
Mount Illimani, which towers about nine thousand feet 
higher. Although one of the loftiest mountains of this 
hemisphere, Illimani is not really a peak, but rather a 
vast mountain mass that is impressive because of its 
enormous height and bulk. It has four separate peaks, all 
of which are eternally capped with white, giving this 
Andean giant its name, which means “Snow Mountain.” 
Among these peaks, at an altitude of almost sixteen 
thousand feet, is a little lake, and on their slopes glaciers 
are always slowly creeping downward. 

When | first visited La Paz in 1898, I crossed the plains 
between here and Lake Titicaca on a stage drawn by eight 
mules. The teams were changed every three hours and 
we made most of the forty-five-mile ride at a gallop. On 
this trip I came to the Bolivian capital by rail, boarding 
the train at Guaqui. That port is a town of mud and 
galvanized iron buildings. It 1s scattered over a large 
area, and looks somewhat like the desert towns I have 
seen in Arizona and Nevada. I ate my dinner in the 
Grand Hotel Guaqui, the meal beginning with chupe, a 

194 


THE TIBET OF SOUTH AMERICA 


greasy soup with vegetables and a great chunk of meat 
floating in it. There was also fish from Lake Titicaca, 
beefsteak, and a concoction of potatoes that contained so 
much pepper that my mouth still burns when I think of it. 

Leaving Guaqui, I rode in a comfortable train across a 
region that is bare and bleak in the extreme, although it is 
almost in the shadow of the great Sorata range, the 
grandeur of which is beyond description. The trip takes 
three hours, but at the end of that time | could still see no 
sign of a city. Suddenly the train stopped at the very 
brink of a great precipice, and there was La Paz spread out 
far below me. 

The city lies in a mighty hollow in the plateau away 
up here on the roof of the world. Its site is shaped like 
a giant letter U, three miles wide and about ten miles long. 
This natural bowl is supposed to have been a depression in 
the bed of the great inland sea that once covered the 
plateau. Then, scientists say, the earth rose and the water 
ran out at the crack through which the Chuquiyapu or La 
Paz River now flows, leaving the great basin shut in by 
its giant ramparts. Cultivated patches now extend far 
up the sides of the basin, and at the bottom are the two- 
and three-story houses roofed with red tiles and galvanized 
iron, the great churches and public buildings, the wide 
plazas and narrow streets, that make up the city of La 
Paz. 

I have climbed the walls of Jerusalem, and have tramped 
for miles about the Great Wall of China. They were 
made by man, and neither is more than fifty feet in height. 
The walls of La Paz were made by God and are thirty 
times higher. They extend upward from the city for a 
distance three times the height of the Washington Monu- 


195 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


ment, ending in a plateau that is more than thirteen thou- 
sand feet above the level of the Pacific Ocean. 

From the little station on the edge of the basin I rode 
down the sides of the walls on an electric trolley, zigzagging 
this way and that in great winding curves. Here the cars 
flew around a loop, and there they cut a figure 8, while 
farther on | could see a half-dozen different levels of track 
above and below me. As I descended, the city seemed to 
grow larger, and the houses, which had looked like toys 
when viewed from above, became of normal size. I could 
soon distinguish the streets and the buildings about the 
great central plaza. At the same time I began to notice 
the people, most of them dressed in the bright hues that 
transform the thoroughfares of La Paz into a maze of 
waving ribbons and make the city one of the most colour- 
ful in South America. 

La Paz was founded by the Spaniards in 1545 on the 
site of a former Indian village where the natives had been 
washing gold from the river for many years. It is now 
the capital of a country that, since even before its national 
existence, has been again and again in the throes of war- 
fare with outside powers and the scene of internal revolu- 
tions. It is only within recent years that the republic 
has had freedom from disturbances long enough for it to 
develop its great resources by modern means and to 
establish railway connection with the outside world. 

Bolivia was originally a part of the viceroyalty of Peru, 
and later was under the rule of the government at Buenos 
Aires. It owes its national independence in a large 
measure to the George Washington of South America, 
Simon Bolivar, for whom it was named when it declared 
itself a republic. Bolivar was a Venezuelan who, during 

196 


THE TIBET OF SOUTH AMERICA 


a visit to the United States in 1809, was greatly impressed 


- with our then new government, and returned to South 


America determined to free his country from Spanish rule. 
After ten years of alternate victory and defeat on his part 
his efforts were finally successful, and in 1819 he was made 
the first president of the new republic of Colombia, which 
contained the former royal colonies of Venezuela and 
New Granada. 

In 1822 Bolivar was called to help the Peruvians in their 
fight for independence, and two years afterward was 
named dictator of Peru. Later the present republic of 
Bolivia was formed. Fora long time Bolivar had absolute 
control over Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, and there has 
never been any proof that he ever used any of the govern- 
ment resources for his private gain, or that he was ever 
insincere in his work for liberty in South America. How- 
ever, dissatisfaction with his exercise of power arose, and 
he was finally forced to resign, dying shortly thereafter. 

Bolivia to-day is probably the third largest of the 
South American republics. As its boundaries have never 
been exactly determined, estimates of its area range 
from five hundred thousand to more than seven hundred 
thousand square miles. It is one fourth as large as the 
main body of the United States and six times the size of 
Great Britain and Ireland. The republic extends from 
north to south as far as from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, 
and it is almost as wide as the distance from New York to 
Detroit. Nevertheless, practically the only part of the 
country known to the outside world is the plateau, which 
is important chiefly for its minerals. It is a mighty 
treasure vault containing vast deposits of tin, silver, 
copper, tungsten, and bismuth. 


197 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


As the rugged chain of the Andes comes down into 
Bolivia from Peru, it divides into two great branches, be- 
tween which lies this high table-land. Only ninety miles 
inland from the Pacific, it has an average elevation of 
more than thirteen thousand feet above the level of that 
ocean. From north to south it is about four hundred 
miles long and from east to west a hundred miles wide. 
The Bolivian plateau is so large that eight states the size of 
Massachusetts could be laid down upon it without touching 
the slopes of the mighty peaks that skirt its edges. There 
are large areas of flat country broken at intervals by 
smaller ranges. Higher than the Peruvian plateau, this 
table-land is also colder, and has practically no trees upon 
it, although much of it is covered with scrubby bushes 
and grass upon which alpacas and llamas feed. The winds 
that sweep over it are extremely biting. Indeed, to pro- 
tect my face from the intense cold | often have to wear 
a sort of knitted helmet of alpaca wool, covering my whole 
head except my eyes and mouth. | 

Bordering the plateau on the east are the mountains of 
the Cordillera Real, which contain some of the highest 
peaks in the New World. It is walled in on the west 
by the Cordillera Occidental, where Sajama, the monarch 
of that range, and the snow-clad peaks of Pomarapi, 
Parinacota, and Huallatiri all tower more than twenty 
thousand feet into the sky. In fact, Bolivia has more high 
mountains than any other country outside Asia. Within 
its borders are more than a dozen that approximate four 
miles in height, to say nothing of this great table-land, 
twice as far up in the air as the plateaus of the Rockies. 

At the edge of the plateau the land slopes steeply down- 
ward, and many mountains that are capped by eternal 


198 


La Paz is the world’s highest capital, and behind it is Illimani, one of 
the loftiest mountains in all the Andes, 20,800 feet above the sea. The 
city is the commercial centre of Bolivia, as well as the seat of govern- 
ment. 


Sheltered within the walls of a rocky gorge fifteen hundred feet 
deep, La Paz has succeeded in coaxing a few trees to grow on the Alameda, 
one of the principal residential streets. 


THE TIBET OF SOUTH AMERICA 


snows have at their feet all the fruits of the tropics. 
Travelling on horse- or mule-back, one can descend between 
daybreak and sunset from a glacial mountain pass fifteen 
thousand feet high to a land of flourishing orange groves. 
Indeed, dropping down a mile in this part of the world 
brings climatic changes equivalent to those of a journey 
two thousand miles to the north of the Equator or two 
thousand miles to the south. 

On the eastern slopes of the Cordillera Real, not far 
from La Paz, is a district of fertile valleys known as the 
Yungas. That region has a semi-tropical climate and a 
heavy rainfall, and is covered with luxuriant vegetation, 
including plantations of coca, coffee, corn, sisal, and 
sugar cane. Most of the cane is used for the manufacture 
of alcohol. There are groves of English walnuts, as well 
as of oranges, bananas, peaches, apples, and pears. 
Practically all the fruit of the La Paz markets comes from 
the Yungas, being brought in on the backs of Indians or 
on mules. On some days as many as five thousand mules 
and burros go over the trail to the capital. A railway is 
now being built from La Paz over one of the highest 
mountain passes of the world and thence down into the 
Yungas. It is one of a network of lines that are planned to 
connect the plateau with the lowlands and the surrounding 
republics. 

Until recent years, Bolivia has been almost a hermit 
country. Lying in the middle of the South American 
continent, it is separated from the Pacific Ocean by the 
mountains and the coastal desert, and from the Atlantic 
by the almost unexplored regions east of the plateau. 
It has no seaport, and until within the last generation it 
had no railway connections with the rest of the continent. 


199 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


Even to-day most of its fertile lands on the eastern slope 
of the Andes are practically unknown. 

Considering the extent of its productive area, ‘Bolivia 
is one of the most thinly settled countries on earth. It 
has an average of only three or four people to the square 
mile. Its entire population is less than that of the city of 
Chicago, and there are not as many whites living here as 
in Columbus, Ohio. Most of the Bolivians are on the pla- 
teau. In fact, eighty per cent. of them live two miles 
above sea level, and as many as sixty per cent. have their 
homes at an elevation of twelve thousand feet or higher. 
The majority of the people are Indians, who work for the 
whites and the mixed breeds. | 

Bolivia has no large cities. La Paz has perhaps a 
hundred thousand inhabitants, and Cochabamba, the next 
largest town, has only about one third as many, notwith- 
standing the fact that it is located in one of the most fertile 
valleys of all South America. It is the chief distributing 
point for all of eastern Bolivia, and has grown steadily in 
importance since it has been reached by a railway. Sucre 
has less than thirty thousand people, and the mining 
centres of Potosf and Oruro still less. 

Although it is a country almost without cities, Bolivia 
has two capitals. The legal capital is Sucre, about three 
hundred miles southeast of here, which 1s the seat of the 
supreme court and of the archbishopric. It was at Sucre 
that Bolivian independence from Spain was proclaimed in 
1825. The city, which had been founded in 1536 as La 
Plata, was then renamed in honour of General Sucre, the 
first president of the republic. Sucre is the Boston of 
Bolivia. It has more of an atmosphere of culture and 
education and less of commercialism than the other towns 

200 


———E—CSS—S— 


THE TIBE I OR SOUTHVAMERICA 


of the country. Its lower altitude gives it a pleasant 
climate and makes it a favourite residence of wealthy 
retired plantation and mine owners. Even in colonial 
days many of the rich men of Potosi had their residences 
here, and many features of the old Spanish architecture are 
yet to be seen in its homes and public buildings. The 
city still contains the former legislative and government 
palaces, and has a university and many churches. The 
Metropolitan Cathedral is probably the wealthiest in 
Bolivia, its Virgin of Guadalupe being an image of solid 
gold adorned with precious jewels, and said to be worth 
more than a million dollars. 

Later, the actual seat of government was changed to La 
Paz, which is the chief commercial city of the country, and 
more accessible to the rest of South America. It is here 
that the president, the national officials, and the foreign 
diplomats live, where congress meets, and where the real 
work of the administration is done. 

The President is the big man of Bolivia, and is at the 
head of a government that in form is somewhat like that of 
the United States. Besides the chief executive and his 
cabinet, there are judicial and legislative branches, the 
latter composed of a senate and a chamber of deputies, 
nominally elected by the people. There are a number of 
provinces and departments administered by prefects and 
sub-prefects appointed by the federal government. The 
capital of each department has its municipal council, 
and the subdivisions have municipal boards. The ter- 
ritories in the northern part of the republic and in the Gran 
Chaco, on the border of Paraguay, are governed by dele- 
gates. 


201 


CHAPTER XXIII 
SUNDAY IN LA PAZ 


ET us go this morning for a stroll about La Paz, to 
see how the Bolivians spend the Sabbath. Dur- 
ing the week the city has a population of perhaps 
one hundred thousand. On Sunday this num- 

ber is increased by thousands of Aymara Indians from the 
surrounding country. Whole families come en masse, 
many travelling forty or fifty miles or more. They choose 
Sunday as their one and only trading day of the week, 
selling the products they have carried in on their backs, 
and making all their purchases at that time. A visit to 
the market will show us the real La Paz better than any- 
thing else could do. 

We leave our hotel on the plaza in the centre of the city 
and walk past the police station and down the hillto Market 
Street. The sidewalks are filled with buyers and sellers, 
and we pick our way in and out among this mass of hu- 
manity for three blocks before we reach a living cross of 
all the hues of the rainbow. The Plaza San Francisco 
and the intersecting streets are filled with people moving 
to and fro, the whole making a kaleidoscopic picture such 
as can be seen nowhere else on earth. 

I have visited most of the great market places of the 
world. [| have haggled over prices in Calcutta, Bombay, 
and Benares. I have dickered with the Orientals in Cairo 
and Tunis and with the Slavs at the great fair of Nijni 

202 


SUNDAY IN LA PAZ 


Novgorod on the Volga. I have seen the open-air markets 
of Africa and the mighty bazaars of Siam and Burma, but 
nowhere have I found so much colour and brightness as 
right here in La Paz. It dazzles the eyes with a dozen 
different hues to Cairo’s one, and the costumes of Calcutta 
would seem plain and dull beside those we see here. 

The Indians are dressed in the gayest of red, yellow, 
purple, and green. Grown-ups and children have practi- 
cally the same costume, and even the babies are clad like 
their parents. The men and boys wear ponchos, em- 
broidered vests, and pantaloons that reach halfway down 
the calf and are slit up to the knees at the back. A piece 
of white cotton is sewed inside the trouser legs, so that 
they may be more easily rolled up when the Indian crosses 
a stream. Many of the men are barefooted, and some 
wear leather sandals tied on with strings. Practically all 
of them have on little felt hats with round crowns, under 
which are knit caps with earlaps. It is said that the 
Aymara wears his cap day and night, throughout winter 
and summer, taking it off only when it falls to pieces. 
The Indian women wear hats like the men’s, and their 
petticoats rival in gaudiness the ponchos and blankets we 
See: 

While most of the clothing of the Indians is made of 
wool that has been spun and woven by the women and 
children, much of the material for making ponchos has 
come from Germany in recent years. Trade agents from 
that country make a careful study of the wants of the 
natives, and the manufactured goods, made with a knowl- 
edge of the Aymara’s love for bright colours, find a ready 
market. 

What a lot of babies there are all about us! We have 

203 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


to pick our way carefully to keep from stepping on them. 
Some lie on the bare cobblestones and play with the mer- 
chandise their mothers are selling. Others, too young to 
crawl, are tied up in shawls on the backs of the women, 
who go on with their business with apparent disregard of 
their burdens. There is one peeping out of that red shawl 
below us. Its face is as brown as a berry and its little 
black eyes blink at us from under its yellow knitted cap, 
the earlaps of which stick out like horns on each side of its 
face. Another baby, a few months older, is being watched 
by its father, and on the opposite side of the street we see 
several taking their lunch at their mothers’ breasts. 
Most of the babies are laughing, and only one or two 
are crying. Some are pretty, some are ugly, and nearly 
all are dirty and covered with vermin. We see several 
whose heads are undergoing an inspection at the hands of 
the mothers, who eat the product of their search. This 
condition is not confined to the heads of babies; it is found 
among both the Indians and the lower class cholos of all 
ages. Men, women, and children take part in both the 
hunt and the feast, the rule being that the hunter is en- 
titled to all the game that he catches, no matter upon 
whose preserves he is pursuing the chase. In this con- 
nection I might tell how I carried my poor Spanish with 
me from store to store in search of a fine-toothed comb, 
but the experience is too recent and too painful to relate. 
Mingled with the crowd is a large part of the white 
population of the Bolivian capital, which has come out to 
buy and see the sights. We pass women in black with 
black crépe shawls wound tightly about their olive-skinned 
faces. Formerly no Bolivian lady of social standing 
would think of appearing in the market, but that condition 
204 


SUNDAY IN LA PAZ 


is changing, and we see many women dressed in Paris 
models, who have evidently stopped at the markets on 
their way home from church. Some are accompanied by 
men who wear high black hats, black clothes, and black 
gloves. 

But let us go on with our walk. How quiet itis! There 
is the hum of conversation and now and then the jangle of 
bargaining, but though there are thousands here, we hear 
scarcely a footfall. The bare feet and the leather sandals 
of the Indians make hardly a sound as their owners pass 
over the streets. In addition to the crowd on the cobble- 
stone roadways are two long lines of women merchants 
sitting on the sidewalks with their vegetables and other 
products spread out before them. Here is a woman with 
a little pile of potatoes and two or three artichokes. Close 
by is another selling onions, and a little farther over a girl 
has for sale green roasting ears, peas, and lettuce. On the 
opposite side of the street is a woman who has flour in 
bags that hold but a half pint, and farther on are peddlers 
of fruit. Asin the markets of Peru, everything is sold by 
the pile, and the piles are exceedingly small. There are 
no weights and measures to tell the buyer how much he is 
getting. A half-dozen little potatoes, a handful of flour, 
or a tablespoonful of salt are the usual amounts sold, and 
one person’s entire purchases for the day could be crowded 
into a half peck basket. 

Nevertheless, the variety of vegetables and fruits and 
meats is large, and the quality is especially fine. Bolivia 
has maize with kernels twice as large as any grown by our 
farmers. Some, of a bright yellow colour, are as big as 
my thumb nail. Others are white and so floury that they 
can be mashed to a powder between two stones. Some 

205 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


of the corn is a mulberry colour; other kinds are red, or 
even jet black. 

In addition to the red, white, and pink potatoes we 
have already seen in Peru, Bolivia has a number of other 
varieties. Some, of a grayish yellow colour, will grow on 
the highest plateaus. They have an acid taste and must 
be laid out in the sunshine a while before cooking. Others 
are shaped like dahlia roots and taste somewhat like tur- 
nips. Nearly every potato seller has chu#io among her 
wares. It is made in much the same way as that I saw 
in Peru. Along the Desaguadero River one may see sacks 
of these potatoes, anchored by long strings to stakes driven 
into the bank, soaking in the stream before being frozen. 
The passage of a steamer near one of these submerged 
sacks is always the signal for an Indian boy to scamper 
down the bank to stand guard and see that the chuio is not 
washed away by the waves or broken loose by being caught 
in the paddle wheels of the boat. 

Strolling onward we see quinua, wheat, barley, and oats, 
all sold in almost infinitesimal quantities. Next are 
oranges, apricots, and bananas, sweet and sour lemons, 
and enormous white grapes. There are alligator pears 
twice the size of those that are sold in our markets, as well 
as tunas, the fruit of the cactus. One strange variety of 
fruit, the chirimoya, looks like a mammoth bean pod. 
It has a green skin and a pulp that when cold tastes like 
finely flavoured ice-cream. One woman is selling coffee 
beans fresh from the grove, and another is peddling sections 
of sugar cane half as long as my arm. Most of these prod- 
ucts have been brought by the Indians all the way from 
the Yungas valleys. 

Among the Indians are many cholos. The women are 

206 


It is a forty-mile trip from La Paz to the glaciers of Mount Illimani, 
though when viewed from the streets of the capital they seem to hang 
over the city. 


Although Bolivia is a land of the tropics, it is so cold on the high pla- 
teau that instead of setting up business in a shady spot, the La Paz mar- 
ket woman seeks a place in the blazing sun. 


The well situated chola cook of La Paz could hardly look the world in 
the face on Sunday without her complete outfit of bright green skirt, 
gorgeous fringed silk shawl, round derby-like hat, and white kid boots 
with high heels. 


SUNDAY IN LA PAZ 


known as cholas, and cholita is a semi-affectionate term for 


a young girl. The cholo men dress much as we do, but the 
women and girls cling to the same costumes of generations 
ago. They delight in bright colours, and seem to have 
robbed the gorgeous Andean sunsets for the gay hues of 
their shawls and dresses: Hundreds of them wear skirts 
of sea green or sky blue, and not a few have short dresses 
of flaming red. They have shawls of the finest of silk, so 
draped that they stand out over the skirts. The skirts 
reach only to the calf of the leg, the plumpness of which ts 
emphasized by high buttoned shoes of white, cream, or 
blue kid. This fashionable footgear has high heels and is 
tied at the top by a cord and tassel. 

The girls wear straw hats that the Americans have most 
appropriately dubbed “white enamelled derbies.”” These 
have tiny black bands around the crown and bows on one 
side. Sometimes the bands seem to be pasted on the hat, 
and sometimes they are merely streaks of black paint. 
As the cholita struts along the street on her high heels she 
wears her hat rakishly tilted forward and walks with a 
swing. She flirts her skirts to show her green or blue 
stockings, but often she has no stockings at all, and what 
looks like hose of rose-coloured silk is really an expanse of 
bare leg. 3 

The cholas are very proud of their admixture of white 
blood. They consider themselves superior to their Indian 
sisters, and look down upon the woman who wears a 
blanket or sandals. They are more intelligent than the 
Indians. Many of them own small stores and saloons and 
carry on much of the retail business of the Bolivian capital. 
Not a few are the sole support of their families, their 
husbands often doing nothing but loaf about the streets of 
| 207 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


La Paz, spending the pin money allowed them by their 
wives. 

Leaving the market and strolling onward, we are jostled 
by donkey and llama trains, and by Indians as well. 
Much of the freight of Bolivia is carried on the backs of 
the natives. When I arrived here my trunks were taken 
from the depot by Indian cargadores, or porters, who 
charged me about fifty cents each for carrying two hundred 
pounds a distance of more than a mile. 

I saw an odd load yesterday. It was a limp bundle about 
five and a half feet long and perhaps eighteen inches wide, 
rolled up in a blanket and thrown over a mule so that the 
ends hung down on each side of the animal’s back. Beside 
it on another mule rode a policeman, while a crowd of 
Indian women came wailing behind. The bundle was the 
body of a woman who had been murdered a few days be- 
fore for the fifty dollars that she was known to have saved, 
and the policeman was bringing the corpse and the crim- 
inals to La Paz. 

Here comes a drove of llamas down a side street. Their 
heads are in the air, and their ears stand up like those of a 
fox terrier. They look this way and that, and seem sur- 
prised at the strange things about them. Every animal 
is marked or branded in a way that seems partly for identi- 
fication and partly for ornamentation. Some are splotched 
with red paint, others have notches or holes cut into their 
ears, and many have their ears tied with gay ribbons and 
strings. Each llama has a bag of freight tied on its back 
with ropes that pass under its belly. They are loaded 
with faqguia, or dried llama manure, which by nightfall 
will be distributed among the kitchens of the city as fuel. 

Practically all the cooking of La Paz is donewith this fuel. 

208 


SUNDAY IN LA PAZ 


Most of the coal used in the city has to be shipped in from 
other countries. Coal is known to exist on the Copaca- 
bana peninsula in Lake Titicaca, along the route of the 
railway to Arica, and in other parts of the country, but 
none of the Bolivian deposits has been developed to any 
extent. Near La Paz, peat beds that cover twenty-five 
hundred acres are being worked on a small scale. 

The freight rates on coal are so high that it is too expen- 
sive for ordinary use, and the result is that there is not a fur- 
nace or hot-water heating plant in the whole city. Several 
of the wealthy families use electricity for heating purposes, 
and by paying an extra charge I can have an electric heater 
in my hotel room until ten o’clock at night. 

During the winter months of June, July, and August the 
temperature in La Paz often varies fifty or sixty degrees 
during twenty-four hours, and although one may be com- 
fortable at noonday in the bright sunshine, after night- 
fall many of the houses are decidedly chilly. The first 
stove ever used in La Paz was brought here about thirty 
years ago by the American minister to Bolivia, and was at 
first regarded with awe and superstition by the Indians. 
Even most of the whites at that time considered artificial 
heat injurious, putting it in a class with moonlight, which 
was to be avoided by all means. A journey begun ona 
moonlight night was certain to end in misfortune, while not 
even the most infatuated suitor, it is said, would think of 
serenading his chosen one beneath a full moon. The 
moonlight, he firmly believed, would bring on neuralgia if 
it struck his face, and would cause baldness if his un- 
covered head were exposed to it. 

Llama manure is burned in small stoves, giving forth 
but little smoke and no sparks, and can be safely used 


209 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


by even the most stupid Indian. La Paz seldom has fires 
that do any great damage, and, indeed, I am told that only 
a few buildings have been burned down within the past 
fifty years. Most of the structures are built of mud 
bricks, with trimmings of stone, and it would be difficult 
to set them on fire. Thatched roofs have been forbidden 
by a city fire protection ordinance. 

I can see great changes in La Paz since my last visit 
here. The capital has sprung into new life, and it seems 
to me more enterprising than Lima, although the latter is 
almost twice as large. New buildings are going up, and 
masons and carpenters are working everywhere. 

The streets are full of traffic. When I was here before 
there was not a public cab in the whole city, and you 
could number the private carriages on your fingers and 
toes. Now there are taxis and innumerable private 
automobiles. There is also an electric car line that ex- 
tends for about two miles down the valley to the suburb of 
Obrajes. The streets are so narrow that the cars often 
have to run at one side, and the trolley wire is attached to 
the walls of the houses. 

La Paz isa city of hills and valleys. The thoroughfares 
parallel with the river are more or less level, but the cross 
streets climb up and down, and the altitude is so great that 
one unaccustomed to it can walk but a very few steps with- 
out stopping to get his breath. Fat people especially are 
most uncomfortable, and are wise to avoid exertion as 
much as possible. I have been told here that cats cannot 
stand the rarity of the atmosphere of La Paz, as they go 
into convulsions and die. I was ready to accept this 
statement as true, particularly as I could not remember 
ever having seen a cat here—or of having my midnight 

210 


ae 


Taking a walk in La Paz means more than at home, for climbing the 
steep streets in the thin air of twelve thousand feet altitude may cause the 
stranger to suffer palpitation of the heart, headache, or nausea. 


High up above the Bolivian capital is the chief cemetery of the city. 
It consists of a series of wall-like structures, divided into rows and tiers 
of niches, in which the coffins are placed. 


SUNDAY IN LA PAZ 


slumbers disturbed by feline yowlings. When I men- 
tioned this fact one day to an American who has lived in 
Bolivia for several years, he agreed that La Paz was seem- 
ingly catless, but attributed the condition, not to the at- 
mosphere, but to the natives’ taste for stewed cat as a 
table delicacy. 

The use of automobiles in La Paz has brought a demand 
for better highways, and the rough cobbles of the more 
level streets have been covered with crushed stone. On 
the steep thoroughfares, however, the cobblestones afford 
a foothold for the llamas and donkeys, as well as for the 
human beasts of burden we see 

Within the past two decades La Paz has practically 
doubled in size. It has spread out to the edge of its basin 
and has begun to extend down the valley. In the centre 
of the city is the beautiful Plaza Murillo, filled with shrubs, 
flowers, and trees. It was named for the Bolivian patriot 
who was executed there by the Spaniards in 1810. Onone 
side of this plaza is the Capitol, and on another side is the 
executive mansion, where I called upon the President. 
It is a handsome building, beautifully finished inside. I 
went up a staircase of the purest white marble from the 
quarries of the Desaguadero River, and the magnificent 
parlour in which I was received was decorated with 
statues and paintings. 

Next to the President’s palace is the unfinished La Paz 
cathedral, which is planned to seat twelve thousand people. 
It has been in the course of construction since the founda- 
tions were laid in 1843, parts of it having been torn down 
and rebuilt again and again. Skilled craftsmen were 
brought from Europe to instruct the Indian workmen in 
cutting and polishing the stone used in the building, the 

211 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


natives proving surprisingly apt pupils. The altar is 
to be of native marble from the quarries not far from La 
Paz. The cathedral is being put up by funds obtained 
from a tax upon all the goods brought across Lake Titi- 
caca, which is to be in force as long as the work of building 
goes on. There are some unkind skeptics who allege that 
the cathedral will never be completed, as the contractors 
are desirous of continuing the receipts from these imports. 

Although some of the older stores of La Paz are not un- 
like those I saw in Cuzco, there are large business buildings 
that would be a credit to any city of the same size in the 
United States. Many of the stores that formerly were 
mere caves in the walls have put in plate-glass windows, 
‘and are displaying modern merchandise. As the plateau 
is chiefly a mining region and manufacturing is but little 
developed, most of the necessities of life must be imported, 
and consequently prices are high. | saw athletic goods for 
sale, and Jearned that there are golf links on the heights 
above La Paz. There are several tennis courts in the 
city, and the first baseball game in Bolivia was played 
here on July 4, 1920, between two teams recruited from 
the American colony. 

Homes of modern type are beginning to make their 
appearance in La Paz, and bathrooms and up-to-date 
plumbing are no longer the rarity they were a few years 
ago. On the outskirts of the city are many fine residences, 
some of them of the French villa and Swiss chalet type. 
They are of two stories with very high ceilings, and are 
made of brick covered with bright-coloured stucco. Other 
residences are of Spanish architecture, surrounding patios 
in which are fountains and trees and beautiful flowers. 
Such buildings are found in the heart of the city, and from 

212 


4 
= Pe ———— 


SUNDAY IN LA PAZ 


the streets the passer-by can look in through the front doors 
and catch a glimpse of the gardens within. In some houses 
the patios are used as storehouses and stables for the 
donkeys and the llamas that bring in the crops from the 
country estates of their owners. Many of the business 
buildings were once residences, and their patios are now 
filled with packing boxes. 

One thing that adds to the brightness of the Bolivian 
capital is a law that requires every man to paint his house 
front at least once a year. The annual painting season 
was not long ago, and just now everything is spick and 
span with gay colours. Another city provision is that 
every one must each day sweep the streets in front of his 
house. 


213 


CHAPTER XXIV 


THE FIRST CITY IN AMERICA 


N THE high plateau of Bolivia, not far from 

La Paz, are the remains of a prehistoric city 

that scientists say is probably the oldest in all 

America. It antedates Machu-Picchu in Peru 

by thousands of years, its origin having been long forgotten 

when the Inca Empire was founded. The time of its build- 

ing has never been exactly fixed, but the pottery, relics of 

gold and copper, and the skeletons of human beings taken 

from its ruins lead to the supposition that it was in exist- 

ence two thousand years or more before the first stones of 
the pyramids were laid down in Egypt. 

This ancient city is known as Tiahuanaco, and the ruins 
are only a half mile from the Indian village of that name. 
They are twelve miles from Lake Titicaca, but the remains 
of stone piers indicate that when the city was built it was 
directly on the shores of the lake. Most authorities say the 
ruins are those of a mighty city, but others claim that 
Tiahuanaco was merely a place of worship and a sanctuary. 
It is true that at its present elevation this region is too cold 
and bleak to support a large population. That fact has 
led to the general belief that in the far-distant ages when 
Tiahuanaco was built this part of the plateau had a much 
lower altitude and consequently a warmer climate. 

I stopped at Tiahuanaco on my way across the plateau 
from Guaqui to La Paz. As at most of these plateau 


214 


At the time of the Spanish conquest the Incas had forgotten, if they 
ever knew, the origin of the buildings at Tiahuanaco, believed to be the 
oldest ruins in the Americas, and more ancient than the pyramids in 


Egypt. 


For centuries the ruins at Tiahuanaco have served as quarries, five 
hundred trainloads of cut stone having been used for railroad bridges 
alone. Here an Indian has put together an ancient doorway and built his 
mud hut around it. 


THE FIRST CITY IN AMERICA 


towns, I was besieged at the station by Indians and cholas 
selling eggs, meat, and food, as well as by a horde of 
children and grown-ups offering me souvenirs. Knowing 
that visitors to Tiahuanaco are interested in the ruins 
chiefly because of their great age, the natives try to sell 
tourists ordinary pebbles and bits of stone—in fact, any 
kind of article they can find—blandly stating that they 
are ‘‘antiques’”’ thousands of years old. 

The village consists of mud huts, many with doorways of 
beautifully carved stone that has been brought from the 
ruins and set into the walls. On some of the thatched 
roofs are wooden crosses which, with the Indians, have 
taken the place of the sun god symbol. The town has a 
Catholic church built partly of beautifully cut stones 
taken from the ruins of the ancient city. In front of itisa 
cross on a pedestal made of such stones, and on each side 
of the gateway that leads into the church are carved idols. 
These also came from old Tiahuanaco, whose people wor- 
shipped we know not what. 

The ruins are scattered over a broad level plain, with 
an area equal to about a dozen one-hundred-and-sixty- 
acre farms. There is nothing to be seen on any side ex- 
cept the mud huts of the Indians and the alpacas, llamas, 
and sheep shepherded by Aymara women who spin or 
knit as they watch their flocks. Between the fallen 
pillars and blocks of stone a few scrawny pigs run grunting 
and squealing. In the distance towers the high wall of 
the Andes. 

Most of the ruins of Tiahuanaco have been carried 
away. Only the mighty pillars scattered here and there, 
the carved stones from the old buildings, and the remains 
of massive walls and terraced mounds indicate the wonders 

215 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT | 


of the past. Some stones are half buried, and others rise 
above the tufts of grass and the scanty shrubbery. Traces 
can be seen of five great structures, which scientists know 
as the fortress, the temple, the palace, the hall of justice, 
and the sanctuary. The temple was a rectangle 455 feet 
long and 388 feet wide. Its outlines are marked by mas- 
sive blocks of red sandstone, some of which are still erect. 
They evidently formed part of a rough wall that supported 
a platform of earth rising eight feet above the surrounding 
plain. On the eastern side of this platform was a lower 
terrace along the edge of which were ten great stone 
pilasters ranging from nine to fourteen feet in height and 
from two to four feet wide. Nine of them are still stand- 
ing to-day. The fortress, which also was built in terraces, 
was even larger than the temple, measuring 620 feet long, 
450 feet wide, and 50 feet high. 

One of the most striking of the ruins is a great doorway 
eighteen inches thick, seven feet high, and thirteen feet 
long, cut out of trachyte, a light-coloured volcanic rock. 
The opening through its centre is four and a half feet high 
and almost three feet in width. Above it the stone is 
covered with beautiful carvings that remind me of those 
I have seen in the ancient temples of Egypt. Some of the 
figures hold sceptres and some have crowns on their heads. 
They have human bodies, feet, and hands, but often the 
heads of condors. The central one, in especially high re- 
lief, is supposed to have represented Pachacamac, be- 
lieved by some of the Indians to have been the creator of 
the universe. This doorway has been broken across the 
top, either by earthquake or lightning. Visitors to 
Tiahuanaco during the middle of the last century say that 
it was lying on the ground, but later it was found to be 

216 


ae; 


CO OD iS Ee ARIS BERL hs 8 


THE FIRST - CIpy IN AMERICA 


standing upright again, although there is no record of who 
raised it. Another doorway, not so large, has been 
carried away from the ruins to a cemetery halfway be- 
tween here and the village. 

There are many other enormous stone blocks larger 
than any | have seen elsewhere in the world outside 
Cuzco or Egypt. I saw one thirty-six feet long and seven 
feet wide, and another twenty-six feet long, sixteen feet 
wide, and six feet thick. Some of the blocks are sandstone 
and others trachyte, the latter beautifully carved and 
polished. How they were transported here in the dim 
prehistoric ages when Tiahuanaco was built probably will 
always be a matter of conjecture, as to-day rocks of this 
size are found only at long distances from here. 

Among the most remarkable features of the ruins are 
the stone idols that have been dug out of the ground and 
stood upright. Some of these idols are of gigantic size. 
Their bodies are so large around that I cannot encircle 
them with my two arms, and they are more than eight 
feet in height. The faces have thick lips, and the heads 
are so cut that they would be a delight to our modern 
Cubists. They are all angles, even to the eyes, the noses, 
and the lips. Their features are now sadly mutilated, 
however, due in great part to the idols being used as rifle 
targets by Bolivian youths passing through here. 

Many of the excavations at Tiahuanaco were made 
known to the outside world by Ephraim George Squier, 
who came to Peru more than a half century ago as a 
special commissioner from the United States and described 
these ruins in his book, ‘‘ Incidents of Travel in the Land 
of the Incas.’”” When I was first in Bolivia, more than 
twenty-five years ago, | went over Squier’s discoveries 


Bly 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


with Professor Adolph Bandelier, who was then here for 
the American Museum of Natural History, and who said 
that Squier’s deductions as to the age of this city were in 
the main correct. Squier was told by the Indians that 
there were large vaults beneath the temple, and that an 
underground passage led from here to Cuzco. He dug 
under the foundations but foundneither vaults nor passage. 
More recently, further discoveries were made by Dr. 
Otto Buchtein, the director of the National Museum at 
La Paz. He unearthed many interesting ruins not far 
from the temple, and others elsewhere on the plain. 

I have visited the National Museum at La Paz, which 
now contains many of the objects found at Tiahuanaco. 
Some of the smaller idols have been taken there, as well 
as several other stone figures and numerous pieces of 
pottery. The director of the museum believes that the 
pottery dates back to eight thousand years ago, or to more 
than six thousand years before Christ. If he is correct, 
these are the oldest records of civilization now in exist- 
ence. He tells me that he does not think that Tiahuanaco 
was a city of the red race, but of a white race that in- 
habited this part of the Andes in prehistoric times. In 
this idea he is not alone. 

Others have expressed the belief that the Bolivian 
plateau was once inhabited by the ancient Pheenicians, 
and that the gold of Ophir came from the Andes. The 
Bible states that the ships were three years in making the 
journey to the mines. In those ancient times it would 
certainly have taken as much as three years for a ship to 
pass out of the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibral- 
tar, cross the Atlantic Ocean to the west coast of this con- 
tinent by way of the Strait of Magellan, and then return. 

218 


THE FIRST CITY IN AMERICA 


The verse referred to says they “brought back gold and 
also almug trees, and ivory, apes, and_ peacocks.” 
There is no ivory in South America and the peacock comes 
from India. There are plenty of monkeys in the lowlands 
of this continent, but as to the almug tree, I know it not. 

The collection of pottery numbers thousands of pieces 
and fills several rooms. The objects are of all sizes, from 
vases that will hold three or four gallons to little cups not 
as large as an eggshell. There are bowls and beautifully 
shaped terra-cotta cups. Many of the latter are as fine as 
porcelain and when tapped give forth a similar sound. 

Some of the pottery resembles the Etruscan in its deco- 
ration, while other pieces are covered with hieroglyphics 
somewhat like Chinese or Japanese characters. The cups 
and the bowls shaped like a cat seem to indicate an Egyp- 
tian origin. They made me think of Bubastis, where the 
people worshipped the cat in the days of the Pharaohs. 
That ancient city was situated in the Land of Goshen, not 
far from the present site of Zagazig, and on the main route 
from the Holy Land to Egypt. Bubastis had many cat 
goddesses, the greatest of which was a cat-headed woman. 
It had a cemetery filled with the mummies of cats, many 
of which had been incased in coverings of wood or bronze. 
Among the cat-shaped pots of Tiahuanaco were found 
skeletons of llamas and vases shaped like the head of the 
condor, the great vulture-like eagle of the Andes. 

The excavations at Tiahuanaco have also yielded up 
many implements of stone, gold, copper, and bronze, 
spoons of terra-cotta, knives of bone, and arrow points of 
obsidian, a black, glossy, volcanic rock. Bone rings and 
needles of various kinds have been found, as well as stone 
pipes drilled out of a rock as hard as quartz. How the 


219 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


people were able to drill the holes without steel or other 
metal is unknown. All these things were found within 
ten feet of the surface of the earth. The soil above them 
was sand, indicating that the city of Tiahuanaco was for 
a long time covered with water, which probably accounts 
for the remarkable state of preservation of the relics. 

Much of the pottery was found near human skeletons 
and seemed to have been buried with the dead. There 
were two pots beside the skull of a man or woman, and one 
beside that of a child. On the foreheads of the skulls of 
the women were plates of pure gold as thin as paper. 
Each plate bears the image of a man, indicating, perhaps, 
that the weaker sex worshipped the stronger eight thousand 
years ago, regardless of how man’s acknowledged superior- 
ity has since dwindled. The features of the image are 
beautifully marked and look as though the gold leaf had 
been pressed upon a die. 

Although the Aymara Indians about Tiahuanaco are 
supposed to be descended from a race much older than the 
Incas, their skulls are not like those found in the excava- 
tions. The skulls I saw in the museum are different from 
any known to anthropologists. Of enormous size, they 
indicate a race of giants. The foreheads slope back from 
the eyes, reminding one of the Flathead Indians of North 
America, the jawbones are heavy, and the teeth are still 
almost perfect, though perhaps eighty centuries old. 

The Aymaras have many stories and legends as to their 
origin. One is that the first people on earth became so 
wicked that the gods turned them into the stone idols of 
Tiahuanaco. According to another Aymara tradition, the 
world was created by the great god Pachacamac, who made 
it beautiful to look upon and filled it with comforts. It 

220 


THE FIRST CITY IN AMERICA 


was ruled, however, by Khunu, who brought droughts and 
cold and pestilences, until man could hardly exist and be- 
came little more than a beast. Then Pachacamac fought 
the evil Khunu. He sent rains to make the deserts bloom, 
and brought forth the sun to warm the earth. But 
Khunu was not yet vanquished. He added to the rains 
until a flood occurred, during which the earth was in dark- 
ness. 

After that, according to the legend, the prayers of the 
people were answered by Inti, the sun god, who rose from 
his shrine in Lake Titicaca to flood the earth with warmth 
and light. Another god, Ticcihuiracocha, aided him by 
smoothing down the mountains, filling up the valleys 
with fertile soil, and causing waters to flow from the rocks 
and irrigate the land. Above all, he instilled in the 
hearts and minds of the people the qualities of piety, 
order, and industry. Realizing that gold and silver were 
the cause of greed and corruption, he hid them in the 
depths of the most inaccessible regions or in lofty moun- 
tains. It was under this god that man was given a fresh 
start and eventually achieved his present civilization. 

These Indians of Tiahuanaco hold on feast days a sort 
of war dance that rivals the ruins as an attraction for 
most tourists. The men wear costumes of coloured cloth 
and much bright tinsel, with headdresses of brilliant 
feathers made in great fan shapes. Marching through 
the town performing a sort of snake dance, they are 
accompanied by a bedlam of noise produced by the 
violent beating of drums and the playing of native flutes. 
The celebration usually ends in a drunken carousal in 
which chicha and alcohol flow freely. Similar carnivals, 
I am told, are held at La Paz. 

221 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


Another exhibit of much interest in the La Paz museum 
is a large collection of mummies, discovered near the 
Arica-La Paz railway when that line was being built. 
They are supposed to be the mummies of the Chulpas, who 
lived before the time of the Incas. Each is enclosed in a 
basket or bag of fibre, with the head of the mummy pre- 
truding from an opening in one end. The material out of 
which the bag is made is like pineapple fibre, and not- 
withstanding its great age it is firm and strong. The 
threads are evenly twisted, and each bag is woven to the 
exact size and shape of the mummy within. 

The Chulpas were buried in a sitting posture, the legs 
so doubled up that the knees were tucked under the chin 
and the arms clasped back of the neck. I saw scores of 
these mummies, and was allowed to carry some of them 
outside to be photographed. One was that of a young 
woman. It was at least fifteen hundred years old, but 
the bones were sound and the teeth were as white as snow 
and in far better condition than my own. I carried her 
out of the darkness and put her down gently in the sunlight 
on the steps beside me. As | did so, there came to my 
mind the soliloquy of the hero in Tennyson’s “Vision of 
Sin,” as he dances the tango with his skeleton partner: 


You are bones, and what of thatP 
Every face, however full, 

Padded round with flesh and fat, 
Is but modelled on a skull. 


No, I cannot praise the fire 

In your eye—nor yet your lip; 
All the more do I admire 

Joints of cunning workmanship. 


222 


as 5 ees 


Fifteen-hundred-year-old mummies have been found on the Bolivian 


plateau. They are supposed to be the remains of Chulpa Indians, among 
whom the dead were buried in a sitting posture, encased in sacks. 


The Indians say that the first people on earth became so wicked that 
the gods turned them into stone figures, some of which are still standing 
at Tiahuanaco. Their modern use as targets in rifle practice has not 
improved their looks, 


ae 


CHAPTER XXV 
THE AYMARA INDIANS 


N COMING to northern Bolivia from Peru, I have left 
the land of the Quichua Indians for that of the Ay- 
maras, who live about Lake Titicaca in the northern 
part of the Bolivian plateau. They comprise the 


chief Indian race of this republic, although the Quichuas 


are found again in the southern part of the country. The 
Aymaras are said to have been so powerful that they were 
never subjugated by the Incas as were the other Indian na- 
tions that inhabited the western part of South America. 
Even after centuries under the white man’s rule they are 
to-day more aggressive and independent than the humble 
and submissive Quichuas. They are also larger in stat- 
ure than the Peruvian Indians, most of them having an 
extraordinary chest development that enables them to 
breathe without difficulty in this rarefied atmosphere. 
After the Spanish conquest the Aymaras were practically 
enslaved, and many of them on the plateau are still in a 
state of peonage. The Indian of Bolivia is so attached 
to his bit of land that it has always been almost impossible 
to make him leave when large tracts have been formed into 
great estates. Rather than seek a home elsewhere, he 
prefers to work for the white owner a certain number of 
days a week in return for the right to stay on. He receives 
no pay except the privilege of occupying a hut and culti- 
vating a small piece of ground. Indeed, the Aymara cares 
223 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


nothing for his country, his government, his wife or chil- 
dren, and little for his own comfort, but he is genuinely 
attached to his bit of land and his llamas or sheep. Un- 
less his animals are commandeered by his employer or 
the government, he refuses to sell them at any price, al- 
though he will practically sell his children as servants. 

An Englishwoman who has been living here for years 
says that a system of child slavery still exists in both Peru 
and Bolivia. Indeed, this woman tells me that she her- 
self has bought boys and girls under twelve years of age. 
At times she has given them a home out of pity and at 
other times because she wished to use them as servants. 
The system is similar to the custom of binding out children 
to work for their board and clothes that was once common 
in some parts of the United States. 

When particularly in need of money, Indian parents offer 
to sell a child as a servant for from five to ten dollars in 
gold. A contract is then made in which the parents are 
given the right to take the child back upon repayment of 
this sum, but as it is practically an impossibility for the 
Indian to obtain enough money to do so, the purchase of 
the child usually means that one has its services until it 
grows up. The law provides that it must be well treated 
and taught to read and write. 

Practically all the domestic labour of La Paz and other 
cities of Bolivia is done by the Aymaras. The lowest 
types are the pongoes, who carry burdens, bring the vege- 
tables and meats from the market, and clean the pots and 
pans. All kinds of drudgery falls to their lot, including 
much work that servants of other classes refuse to do. 
Indeed, though the rich man may afford twenty other 
servants, he must still have his pongo. 

224 


THE AYMARA INDIANS 


Notwithstanding his hard life, the Indian servant 1s 
attached to his master and will work for him for little or 
nothing rather than for a foreigner who will pay good 
wages. The Aymards make their masters grievances 
their own, and are ready to fight for them on any occasion. 
Feuds are often carried on between the Indians of neigh- 
bouring farms, who engage in pitched battles with guns or 
with slings, the ancient weapon of the Aymaras. Fights 
over land are common even among the small property 
owners. It is not unusual for one man to remove an- 
other’s boundary marks and then drive in his sheep to 
graze. This usually precipitates a bloody battle, all the 
friends of each man being brought in as reinforcements. 

These Indians do not like strangers, and | found them 
particularly averse to having me photograph them or 
their homes. These huts are usually in villages, but some 
of them stand alone on the plateau and high up on the 
mountain slopes. The houses and the home life of the 
Aymaras are much like those of the Quichuas. Often 
the cooking is done outside, and sometimes an oven is 
built against the wall with a cover to protect it from the 
wind and the snow. As in Peru, the women and children 
may be seen spinning wool as they watch their flocks or 
drive their llamas along the trails. Even the bags for 
grain and potatoes are usually of homespun. 

A favourite dish of the Aymards is a stew of dried mut- 
ton called chalona. To make chalona, the carcass of the 
sheep is sprinkled with water at night and left out of doors 
to freeze, the process being repeated several times. It is 
then hung up to dry, and soon becomes so tough and hard 
that it will keep for months. When used it is cut into bits 
and boiled a long time, often with vegetables and chuno, 

225 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


About the same habits of drinking and coca chewing pre~ 
vail among the Aymaras as among the Quichuas. How- 
ever, it is said that these Indians are more intelligent than 
those of Peru, and that the average mentality rises as one 
goes on southward. When his mind has not been deadened 
by alcohol or cocaine, the Aymara is like the Japanese in 
his aptitude for learning new things. It is not uncommon 
to find boys and girls who are equal to the whites in quick- 
ness and mental alertness, and it is known that many of the 
prominent men of La Paz have a strain of Aymara blood. 

There is no doubt about the natural mechanical ability 
of the Aymara. He is painter, carpenter, and mason in 
La Paz. All the labour on the fine houses and public 
buildings of the city has been done by him, and he often 
exhibits considerable artistic ability in making exterior 
decorations of mica mixed with lime and sand and then 
burned in such a way that it has a finish like that of the 
best plaster of Paris. The Indians make much of the 
furniture used in La Paz and do a great deal of interior 
woodwork in mahogany, rosewood, and black walnut. 
They also operate the machinery in many of the factories 
and mines of Bolivia. They seem to be industrious, and 
their employers say that they are as good workers as the 
cholos or whites. 

Many of the best labourers and mechanics of the 
country are Indians who, while serving in the army, 
acquired such a taste for civilization that they have come 
to the cities to work. When their military service is over, 
most of them are not content to go back to the semi- 
savage life of their villages. Those who do go carry with 
them the seeds of civilization, which soon sprout into a 
crop of new ideas and customs. 

226 


ale 


: 


The bulk of the people on the northern part of the Bolivian plateau are 
Aymards, somewhat superior to the Quichuas of Peru. They do the 
hard work of the country, and many of them become skilled artisans. 


| 

' 
' 
i 
Hy 


The Indians work cheerfully enough for the land owners, but insist on 
frequent stops for rest, talk, and coca chewing. Though they have a 


reputation for sourness and sullenness, a white man is absolutely safe alone 
among them. 


THE AYMARA INDIANS 


The reorganization of the Bolivian army several years 
ago made military service compulsory for every youth be- 
tween the ages of nineteen and twenty-one. As the army 
is not large enough to take in every man, however, lots 
are drawn annually to see who will serve. Thousands of 
Indians from every part of the republic are brought to the 
military barracks and schools, where they are drilled by 
German officers. They make fine-looking soldiers and are 
said to have good fighting qualities, being particularly 
noted for their great powers of endurance. In addition 
to being taught to obey, they learn to read and write and 
to do simple sums. Soldiers are always on guard at the 
President’s palace and the capitol, and I frequently see 
them marching through the streets of La Paz. They serve 
on the local police force, which is a good one. 

An institution that is doing much toward the civilization 
of Bolivia’s Indians is the industrial mission school that 
has been founded on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The 
school is supported by funds donated by an Italian, one 
Antonio Chuiotto, who became an ardent Christian while 
in Los Angeles. As a young man he had left Italy and 
settled in California, where he made money in the milling 
industry and then emigrated to Argentina. There he be- 
came interested in bettering the condition of the Indians 
of South America, and when he knew he had not much 
longer to live he decided to leave his money to the Argen- 
tinians for that purpose. However, the laws of that re- 
public presented certain legal difficulties in the accomplish- 
ment of this purpose, and he thereupon came to Bolivia 
to carry out his scheme. 

Chuiotto’s estate, consisting of about thirty-five thou- 
sand dollars, was used to purchase five hundred acres of 

227 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


level land on the shores of Lake Titicaca, about forty-five 
miles from La Paz. There were about two hundred and 
fifty Indians living on it, who, according to custom, went 
with the property. They were allowed to retain the little 
patches of ground that their ancestors cultivated from 
generation to generation, and given the use of pasture for 
their flocks of sheep and llamas. In return, they work for 
the mission about two days of each week. 

The manager of the farm says that at first the Indians 
would have nothing to do with the missionaries. They 
had been told that they would be worked to death and 
cheated out of all their property. However, once they 
learned to trust the Americans, a great desire for education 
sprang up among them and a school was established and is 
attended by both children and grown-ups. The children 
have to work for their parents most of the day, and so 
their school hours are from seven to nine in the morning, 
but they are so anxious to learn that they usually are on 
hand before the teachers are awake. 

New plants and grasses have been introduced at the 
farm, and experiments are being made with grains to see 
if better crops cannot be raised on the plateau. The 
trustees expect to improve the breeds of sheep and to bring 
in goats and American cattle. The manager says he had 
great difficulty at first in persuading the Aymaras to try 
anything new, particularly the modern American plough. 
They were shown that our ploughs could go twice as deep 
as theirs, but they were not entirely converted until they 
saw that the land ploughed in the new way raised better 
crops than ever before. 

The manager tells me that many of these Indians stil! 
believe in witchcraft and that although they are sup- 

228 


THE AYMARA INDIANS 


posedly Christians, they reverence spirits and the mani- 
festations of the forces of nature. During a drought they 
worship streams and springs, and in cold weather they 
pray to the stars and the moon that their crops may not 
be ruined by frost. They think that death is caused by a 
spell cast over the deceased. When a man dies his rel- 
atives and friends are anxious that the witches shall not 
continue to pursue his soul. Not long ago, the family of a 
man who had just died came to the overseer of the school 
farm and asked him to make a cross on a piece of paper and 
below that to write: “‘I have died because | am bewitched 
by my enemies, and I here pray to the Lord that I may be 
free from them in the future.”’ This paper was put into 
the hands of the dead man and buried with him. 

Another United States school in Bolivia that has accom- 
plished much for the Indians is the American Institute at 
La Paz. It is supported largely by the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, but the Bolivian government considers it 
of such benefit that it makes an annual appropriation for 
it and encourages it in every possible way. The school 
was founded by Methodist missionaries in 1907 at the 
request of the Bolivian government, and 1s non-sectarian 
in its teaching. When it was first opened it had one 
hundred and twenty boys in attendance, and since then 
the number has grown to three hundred or more. The 
buildings of the Institute are crowded, and there are more 
applicants than can be admitted. The boys are of all 
classes, from the sons of wealthy farmers and miners to 
those of Indian burden bearers. They may enter the 
school at any age and stay through the equivalent of a 
high-school course. Many of the graduates become clerks 
and private secretaries, and others continue their studies in 

229 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT | 


the colleges of law or medicine in one of the Bolivian uni- 
versities. The students come from all parts of Bolivia and 
even from Chile and Peru. Not a few of them have to 
travel a month by mule, stage coach, and train to reach La 
Paz. 

During my stay here I have visited this institute and 
talked with its teachers, who are graduates of the best 
universities and colleges in the United States. It is 
modelled after our boys’ boarding schools, and has all the 
features that make school life pleasant. To some extent 
it has taken the part of a Young Men’s Christian Associa- 
tion in the encouragement of games and the development 
of athletics. It has a literary society, school publications, 
and a Boy Scout organization that puts on football 
matches and track meets. I have before me the pro- 
gramme, printed in Spanish, of a recent tournament. The 
contestants were in three classes, the first of which was for 
former pupils and students about fifteen years of age. The 
second class included boys between eleven and fifteen years, 
and a third class was for boys under eleven. At the end 
of the meet prizes of gold, silver, and bronze medals were 
presented by the United States Minister to Bolivia. 

The Methodist Church has established also a secondary 
school at Cochabamba, in the heart of Bolivia, about three 
hundred miles from La Paz. That school receives the 
same support from the government as the one at La Paz. 

The elementary public schools of Bolivia are managed 
chiefly by the municipalities. Attendance in them is 
nominally compulsory, but they have almost no Indian 
pupils. Last year these schools numbered only about five 
hundred, with not more than sixty thousand students. 
The republic has about forty schools for higher education, 

230 


——— 


Some notable experiments are being made in providing schools for the 
Indian children of the Bolivian highlands. The Methodists of the United 
States have been especially successful, and their work 1s now supported 


in part by the government. 


The Aymards have preserved their ancient dances, compared with 
which the ceremonials of the Indians of our Southwest are said to be tame 
affairs. On these occasions they wear elaborate headdresses and false faces. 


Comparatively few Indians possess any land of their own. Most of 
them are tenants or labourers on some large estate, the value of which is 
estimated largely by the number of Indian families living on it. 


THE AYMARA INDIANS 


including high schools for girls at La Paz, Sucre, Santa 
Cruz, and Trinidad; there are universities at Sucre and La 
Paz, and schools of mines at Oruro and Potosi. La Paz 
has a commercial school with classes for men and women, 
and also schools of engineering, mining, and agriculture. 

In the past Bolivia has relied almost entirely on minerals 
as the source of its wealth. Now the development of 
agriculture is receiving more and more attention from the 
government, and in 1922 a law was passed prohibiting the 
opening of a public school where there is not enough 
ground for a school garden. This law provides for an 
agricultural course in the normal schools that prepare 
teachers to work among the Indians. The State also gives 
a certain amount each year for the support of the educa- 
tional programme of the Catholic Church, which has mis- 
sions throughout eastern Bolivia. 


231 


CHAPTER XXVI 
FROM LA PAZ TO ORURO 


HAVE come from La Paz to Oruro, the centre of the 

greatest tin-producing region in all the Americas. 

To reach it I rode for eight hours across the bare, 

stony plateau on the La Paz-Antofagasta railway. 
We passed many Indian villages, and now and then saw 
scattered homes here and there on the plain. About Lake 
Titicaca, the huts of the natives were rectangular in shape, 
but these were round and many of them had mud instead 
of thatched roofs. Each farm settlement contained sev- 
eral such homes, surrounded by corrals for the cattle. 

At one station I noticed hundreds of llamas, which had 
come in loaded with bundles of a kind of evergreen shrub 
that is used for fuel on the plateau. The bushes are 
grubbed out from the mountainsides and carried to the sta- 
tions on the backs of men and women as well as on llamas. 

Among the picturesque crowds around the stations at 
two or three of these plateau villages I caught glimpses of 
the Callahuaya, or travelling witch doctors of the Andes. 
A member of this profession is recognized at a glance by 
his distinctive costume, which consists of black breeches, 
a red and white poncho, a bright-coloured sash, and a 
broad sombrero hat. On his breast he wears a huge silver 
cross, and slung across one shoulder is a wallet containing 
aromatic gums, barks, herbs, charms, and figures like the 
small stone llamas I saw at Cuzco. 


232 


FROM LA PAZ TO ORURO 


The Callahuaya travel in groups, often staying away 
from home for as long as five years. They go from place 
to place, stopping awhile in each town, where they serve 
as a combination of witch doctor, veterinary, lawyer, and 
general counsellor for all who seek their advice. During 
these ramblings the women are always left at home. I[n- 
deed, it is not unusual for a man about to be gone for a 
long time to insure his wife a home by bestowing her upon 
a bachelor friend. It is also customary for the husband, 
upon his return, to adopt any children born to his wife 
during his absence. 

Farther on | rode for miles through a flooded region, 
where heavy rains that had fallen the night before had 
covered the pampa with water. In some places it looked 
like a great lake; in others the waters had subsided, leav- 
ing a sort of alluvial deposit. Parts of the plateau were 
dry and with almost no vegetation. Other parts were 
alkaline, and the white sands almost blinded my eyes. 
The mountains are farther away than on the Peruvian 
plateau, and although the altitude is almost two and one 
half miles, one does not seem to be at such a great elevation. 

Except for the massive snow-covered top of I|limani, 
which was within plain sight as I left La Paz, the country 
as seen from the car windows was bleak and monotonous. 
Later, I had also a fine view of the extinct volcano of 
Sajama. An Indian legend says that that mountain was 
once the summit of the flat-topped Mount Chacaltaya, 
and that it was knocked off by a stone from the sling of 
a giant and hurled to its present location. The “‘stone,” 
the legend says, still exists as a hillock on the plain near 
the town of Viacha, which we reached about an hour after 
leaving the Alto above La Paz. 


233 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


Oruro derives its name from the Uru-Uru Indians, who 
lived on the shores of Titicaca when that lake covered the 
entire region between here and its present shores. It lies 
on the plateau at an altitude of more than twelve thousand 
feet, and as a whole is windy, dusty, and unattractive. 
The streets are filled with sand blown about by the sharp 
winds that sweep over the plateau, and the few trees and 
shrubs are stunted and dry. Rising behind the city is a 
background of desert hills honeycombed with mine open- 
ings. 

Many of the houses of Oruro are one-story adobe build- 
ings, but it has some good stores and hotels, and there 
are a movie theatre and clubs established by the foreign 
population. The city now has about twenty thousand 
inhabitants, but is said to have had four times as many in 
colonial days when silver mining was at its height in the 
hills about the town. Silver is still mined here, but the 
chief mineral product of the region is tin. 

I came to Oruro in a comfortable train, in company with 
English, Australian, and American commercial travellers, 
wealthy Bolivians, and miners and tourists from the 
United States. The trip was far different from the one 
I made over the same route years ago. That was long be- 
fore the railway was built, and I rode for three days behind 
mule teams that went at a gallop all the way. A stage 
then ran twice a week from La Paz to Oruro. The 
coaches, which were the most dilapidated rattletraps that 
ever ran upon wheels, had six seats inside and one on top 
with the driver. It was the place on the driver’s seat that 
I coveted, but I found at the stage office that it was already 
reserved and that the whole inside had been taken by a 
rich Bolivian and his family. All the space in the next 


234 


eee 


FROM LA PAZ TO ORURO 


stage, three days later, was also sold out, and for a time it 
seemed that I should have to go on muleback or hire a 
private conveyance, which would have cost one hundred 
and fifty dollars. 

At that moment a friend, adviser, and guide in ways 
Bolivian advised me to try to get a seat on the mail coach. 
I learned that there was always room for one passenger on 
it, and that this seat had not been taken, so I lost no time 
in handing out the twenty dollars for my fare. 

All baggage had to be ready by noon of the day before 
we started. It took three Indians to carry mine to the 
station, and La Paz gazed in wonder as the men trotted 
through the streets with their loads. At the stage office a 
second dilemma arose. Only two hundred pounds of 
luggage were allowed. If a passenger had more it was sup- 
posed to follow him on the next stage, although the chances 
were that it would be forgotten for weeks. My trunks 
tipped the beam of the American scales on which they 
were weighed at just three hundred and seventy pounds, 
and it took much persuasion, monetary as well as verbal, 
before the officials consented to let me take the entire 
amount with me. At last I was told that it could be done, 
and was handed a bill for extra charges that amounted to 
a sum greater than my fare. 

I am not more than ordinarily conceited, but | must 
confess that I felt rather proud that not only myself but 
my baggage as well were to be carried over the country 
with the Bolivian government mails. I had visions of a 
gorgeous red Concord vehicle with uniformed postmen, 
and it was with conscious pride that I told my friends at 
La.Paz how I was going to travel. I noticed that some 
of.them smiled, and that others looked at me more in pity 


235 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


than in admiration. At the time I attributed this to 
jealousy, envy, or ignorance. Soon enough | thought 
differently. 

I had my first sight of the mail coach at six o’clock on 
the morning of my departure. It was a mere baggage 
wagon, and the only seat on it was the one with the driver. 
The bed of the vehicle was so far up in the air that I could 
almost walk under it without stooping. The wagon box 
was not more than six inches deep, and I could not see 
how a ton and a half of mail and trunks could be put into 
it. I had my baggage hurried out, and it went in at the 
bottom. The other pieces were piled on top until the 
wagon looked more like a load of hay coming to the barn 
in harvest time than the government mail. A rawhide 
rope was bound round and round the whole, which was 
then covered with canvas to protect it from a possible rain- 
storm. 

By this time the mules were in their places and I was told 
to climb to my seat beside the driver. It was at least seven 
or eight feet above the ground, and without a sign of a 
cushion of any kind. I finally improvised some with my 
blankets, and was not uncomfortable. My chief grievance 
was the lack of cover when it rained and snowed, as it did 
several times during the trip. My only protection then 
was my waterproof and my knitted hood. 

The “‘liveried’’ coachmen of my imagination were 
cholos. They had no consideration whatever for the mules, 
and their treatment of them was so cruel that I several 
times protested, useless though it was. In the first place, 
the harness was twisted until there was not a tug that was 
straight and not a collar that fitted. Asa result the necks 
of the animals were raw and sore, and this condition be- 

236 


FROM LA PAZ TO ORURO 


came worse as we went on the gallop over the road. | 
remember one little yellow mule that, even before he was 
put into harness, had lost two patches of skin, each as 
big as the palm of my hand, from the front of his shoulders. 
I objected to taking him, as there were other and better 
mules in the corral, but he was hitched up, nevertheless, 
and was given one of the hardest placesin the team. This 
was next to the wagon and directly under the driver. 

We started off at a gallop, but the little beast soon 
slackened his pace. Then the torture began. The driver 
cut at him with a whip that drew blood everywhere it 
touched. We had not gone five miles before the mule’s 
back was bleeding in a half-dozen different spots, and | 
could see that his collar was red with blood from the 
raw places on his neck. From time to time I noticed that 
the driver, when he found that his whipping and whistling 
failed to hurry the mules, took a heavy tug with an iron 
chain and ring at one end and rattled it. This rarely 
failed to frighten the animals into increased speed, but 
if they did not respond, the driver swung it about his head 
and brought it down with a terrible thud upon the little 
mule’s back. We changed animals every fifteen or 
twenty miles, and there was hardly a team that was not 
scarred and bloody in a short time. 

During the trip I had plenty of opportunity to learn 
what the country hotels of Bolivia were like in those days. 
The stations where we stopped to eat and sleep were more 
like stables than inns. None of the rooms had windows, 
and the floors were of mud or stone. In some, the beds 
were ledges of sun-dried bricks upon which a mattress had 
been laid. The only light I had was the candle | brought 
with me, and my candle holder was a spot of melted grease 


237 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


that I dropped on the table or a chair before setting the 
candle down. There were always several beds in a room, 
and I had natives for room mates every night. Before I 
retired the hotel keeper would come in and collect a 
dollar for the use of the bed and a dollar for dinner. 

We started at five every morning, and at half-past four 
I was up and ready for a cup of tea, which, with a couple 
of biscuits, comprised the breakfast served in such places. 
Lunch, which was our real breakfast, was eaten at eleven-‘or 
twelve o'clock, and was more like a dinner. It began with 
a vegetable soup and was followed by two or three stewed 
dishes, all of which fairly swam in grease. Dinner was 
much the same. | 

Such were the accommodations on one of the most 
travelled roads of the country. Conditions of the mule 
trails were far worse. Prospectors when off the beaten 
tracks frequently were unable to procure food or shelter 
of any kind. This condition exists even to-day in parts 
of interior Bolivia, as many of the Indians will not allow 
strangers to come into their huts if they can possibly pre- 
vent it. Money seems to be no inducement to them, and 
the only way to get a night’s shelter in such cases is to go 
in and take possession of the best part of the hut. If there 
is anything at hand that is eatable, take it and give the 
Indian some money for it. If you ask to buy it he will 
refuse, and even if he has plenty he will say he has 
nothing. The chances are that next morning, when you 
pay him for your night’s lodging, he will not be displeased, 
but he will offer you nothing and will sell as little as he can. 

Twenty-five years ago there were almost no good roads 
in Bolivia. The highways through the mountains were 
nothing but mule trails, often cut along the sides of preci- 

238 


The town of Oruro is the centre of a mining district that produces a 


large portion of the tin supply of the world, ranking second only to Malaya. 
The Bolivian ore leads the world in its high percentage of pure metal. 


The natural plumpness of the chola becomes corpulency when she wears 
twenty or more skirts. Besides upholding the family prestige in dress, 


the chola is usually its business manager also, and often the owner of a 
market stall or beer shop. 


FROM LA PAZ TO ORURO 


pices so that one rode within an inch or so of destruction. 
Indeed, the road over which I travelled was then the best 
one in Bolivia. The dried-up basin of the great inland sea 
that once covered the plateau formed a natural road-bed. 
In some places it was as flat as a floor for miles, and in 
others there was a gradual slope, but not enough to impede 
the galloping of the mules. We went through long 
stretches of land where there were great piles of stones 
scattered over the fields, and in several places I saw Indian 
women going along picking up stones and carrying them 
in the front of their skirts. They are used also to make 
walls between the fields, and there are so many of them 
that the walls and the piles usually cover as much ground 
as the cleared area. 

The La Paz-Oruro road was one of the few routes on 
which freight was transported by wagon. On most trails 
it was carried on the Andean beasts of burden or on the 
backs of men and women. We met no other vehicles on 
the road, although we passed droves of animals loaded 
with all kinds of freight. There were scores of donkeys 
carrying bundles of coca leaves on their backs to supply 
the towns farther south. Llamas loaded with silver ore 
stalked proudly along with cocked ears, and there were 
many trains of mules. Each train was managed by one 
or two Indians, who walked with or behind the animals, 
never riding them so far as I could see. All the prospec- 
tors used mules for travelling over the country, and all 
supplies for the mines had to be carried through the moun- 
tains in that way. Before the railways were built, mining 
machinery to be used in Bolivia had to be made in sections, 
no piece of which could be larger or heavier than a mule 
could carry on its back. 


239 


CHAPTER XXVII 
THE GREAT TIN MINES 


HE mighty treasure vaults of the Bolivian plateau 

are now furnishing more than one fourth of all the 

tin used on earth, and some day will undoubtedly 

lead the world in the production of that metal. 
Although practically no attention was given to Bolivia’s 
tin until about a generation ago, its production already 
ranks next to that of Malaya, whence comes forty per cent. 
of the world’s supply. The output of Bolivia is greater 
than that of Australia, of Cornwall in England, or of the 
little East Indian islands of Banka and Billiton, which 
are the other important sources of tin. Moreover, no 
other tin mines produce ore containing as high a percentage 
of metal as those of Bolivia. Five-hundred-pound pieces 
of ore found here often contain seventy per cent. of pure 
tin, and one block that weighed a ton contained more than 
twelve hundred pounds of tin. 

Tin is found almost everywhere in the mountains 
of Bolivia, from La Paz to the Argentine border. It is 
mined on the high slopes about Lake Titicaca, and in the 
Cordillera Real and its numerous spurs. It was dug out 
of the earth by the Indians before the Spanish conquest, 
but mining by modern methods did not begin until 1895. 
The ore is found at high altitudes, and one company has 
its operating offices fourteen thousand five hundred feet 
above sea level. 


240 


erie <--- 


THE GREAT TIN MINES 


Here at Oruro are tin mines out of which the metal has 
been taken for generations. One of them is approached 
by a tunnel that starts near the heart of the city, and | 
walked less than a half mile before I came to its workings. 
The ore lies in veins between layers of rock like the meat of 
a mighty stone sandwich, and no one yet knows how deep 
into the earth this metallic filling extends. After it is 
blasted out and carried to the surface, Indian women 
break the great chunks of rock into small pieces, and sort 
out the ones that contain tin. The ore looks like that of 
silver or lead, and is so dull in colour that it is hard to 
realize that the tin in it may one day be glittering on a new 
dishpan or wash boiler. 

[ stopped to watch the women as they sat on the ground 
breaking up the ore with heavy steel hammers. Their 
grimy feet and calves were bare under their voluminous 
skirts, and all of them were dirty and frowsy beyond de- 
scription. Nearly all were chewing coca. They work from 
daylight to dark for less than a dollar of United States 
money. As they are paid according to the amount of ore 
they break and sort, it was with difficulty that I persuaded 
them to stop long enough to be photographed. 

I learned that the mining company that owns this moun- 
tain of minerals employs several hundred women and an 
even larger number of men. The wages are low, but until 
1922, when there was a strike for higher pay, the mine 
owners had never had to contend with labour troubles. 

When I visited the Oruro mines twenty-five years ago, 
I found them using llama manure as fuel. Quantities of it 
were brought in from all over the country, four tons being 
required to run a forty-horse-power engine twenty-four 
hours. This company has now installed the most modern 

241 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


machinery, and burns both oil and anthracite coal under 
its boilers, although some of the mines far from the railways 
still use for fuel lama manure, dried shrubs, or the peat- 
like moss that grows on the plateau. 

In the past the ore was mined in the most wasteful 
manner. Only that containing from forty to fifty per 
cent. of tin was processed; the lower grades were rejected 
because, with the methods then used, they did not yield 
enough metal to pay for the labour necessary to treat 
them. Now, with modern machinery and improved proc- 
esses, much of this discarded ore is being worked over at a 
profit. 

After the ore is broken and sorted, it is sent to the re- 
duction works, which remove many of the impurities, turn- 
ing it into what are called tin concentrates. In that form 
it 1s packed into bags for export to the smelters of England, 
Germany, and the United States. Because of the high 
price of coal, there are almost no smelters in Bolivia. | 
am told that a small one is operating at Potosi, using char- 
coal as fuel. In 1920 an American electrical company 
began a survey of the country to determine how much 
water-power could be made available for mining properties. 

Before the opening of the Panama Canal, Bolivia sent 
most of its tin ore through the Strait of Magellan to Eng- 
land, where it was smelted and refined. Now practically 
all the ore goes through the Canal and, though Great 
Britain is still the largest buyer of Bolivian tin, much of it 
is sent directly to the smelters of New Jersey and Long 
Island. The tin exports are increasing every year, the 
amount shipped in 1922 having been almost double that of 
1921. United States investments in Bolivian tin mines 
have grown steadily, and in 1924 a new mining company, 

242 


a 


Because of the excessive cost of coal in Bolivia, tin ore is only partially 
reduced before it is shipped in sacks to the smelters and refineries of Eng- 
land, Germany, and the United States. 


For centuries the mining methods in Bolivia were both crude and 
wasteful, and only the richest of the ores were saved. This shows the 
primitive method of crushing the rock by grinding it under a stone. 


On the line of the Antofagasta-Bolivia railroad, over which silver and 
tin ores are carried down the mountains to the sea, are famous borax 
lakes from which come a large part of the commercial product. 


THE GREAT TIN MINES 


composed mostly of American stockholders, was incor- 
porated with a capital of fifteen million dollars. More 
American mining machinery was sold in Bolivia in 1923 
than in any preceding year. 

There are scores of valuable tin mines in the region 
about Oruro, and many of them are large producers. The 
Salvadora, near Uncia, which is one of the largest 
American-owned properties in the Republic, often fur- 
nishes twenty-five per cent. of Bolivia’s total tin exports. 
The Llallagua, which is owned also by American capitalists, 
is located in the same mountain as the Salvadora and 
rivals it in production. It has reduction works with a 
capacity of six hundred tons of concentrates a day. 
Much of its output is sent to the United States. 

The Salvadora formerly belonged to Simon I. Patifio, 
the “tin king” of Bolivia, who not many years ago was 
working for wages of a few dollars a month. He is said to 
have Indian blood in his veins, and no one supposed he 
would ever be more than a common labourer. When he be- 
came possessed of the idea that the tin content of the silver 
ore could be profitably extracted, his employers had no 
faith whatsoever in such a project. He went ahead, how- 
ever, and secured options on many of the old ore dumps and 
on several mines. In some way he managed to obtain a 
small capital and, with the few Indians he could hire at low 
wages, started to work one of the old mines. After a hard 
struggle, he finally struck a rich vein and almost over- 
night jumped from poverty to extravagant riches. 

Patifio became a multimillionaire, and took a large part 
in promoting other projects for the development of his 
country. He bought haciendas and mines in different 
sections of the republic, and built a railroad from Macha- 


243 | 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


camarca on the Antofagasta line to Uncia, sixty-four 
miles away. He equipped his mines with the most 
modern machinery, including gravity cableways for carry- 
ing the ore to the reduction works. He spends most of 
his time in Paris, leaving his properties in the hands of his 
manager. 

I have heard of other romances of fortunes made from 
the tin of these Bolivian highlands. A German mechanic 
named Kemp, who opened a mine when tin was selling 
for eleven hundred dollars a ton, sold the property to a 
Chilean syndicate, which paid him one hundred thousand 
dollars in cash and an equal amount in shares in the mine. 
Kemp knew little of the value of money, and he supposed 
that what he had would last him for ever. He went off to 
Europe, where he spent right and left, and within less 
than two years his fortune was gone. He then came back 
to Chile, expecting to get another hundred thousand dol- 
lars by the sale of his stock. 

In the meantime, the price of tin had fallen, and the 
shares that Kemp owned were worth only sixteen cents 
each instead of five dollars. Thinking he had been tricked, 
he threatened the operating company with a suit in the 
courts. ‘The officials replied that there was then no money 
in mining and that he could have the property back as a 
gift. He took it, and for a time almost starved. He did 
not realize enough profit even to pay his Indian labourers. 
Then the price of tin rose, he organized a new company, 
and his stock was soon worth more than one hundred 
and twenty-five thousand dollars. 

Another mine near Oruro, the San José, was discovered 
by a Scotchman named Andrew Penny, who came out 
here years ago as a mechanic. He afterward married an 


244 


THE GREAT TIN MINES 


Indian girl, with whom he was living when his mine began 
to produce tin in paying quantities. The output con- 
tinued to increase, and Penny became wealthy, but did not 
live long to enjoy his riches. He died shortly after he had 
invested some of his money in an estate in Scotland. 
By the Bolivian law, his property in this country was in- 
herited by his wife and his adopted son, who was a half- 
breed. The Indian widow, however, was not satisfied, 
and decided to go to Scotland and see if she could not 
obtain possession of the estate there. The courts ruled 
against her and she returned to Bolivia without the 
property, but with a second husband, who was none other 
than her Scotch lawyer. He had not been able to win her 
case for her, but he did win the lady herself—including 
her millions. 

New tin mines that may some day rival the Salvadora 
and Llallagua mines were opened up not long ago in the 
Quimsa Cruz range between La Paz and Oruro. Unlike 
those of other parts of Bolivia, these deposits contain no 
silver, and so received no attention when tin mining was 
begun on a large scale in the old silver mines. Six of these 
mines were acquired by the Guggenheim interests. They 
are located at altitudes ranging from sixteen to eighteen 
thousand feet above the sea. 

The Guggenheims have built an automobile road from 
Eucalyptus on the La Paz-Oruro line down into a valley 
sixty miles to the eastward. The terminus of the road is 
in an almost tropical region, which has become a popular 
resort for the mining officials and their families. At the 
same time, its fruits and vegetables can be quickly trans- 
ported to the mining camps two miles higher in the air. 

Prospecting for tin is going on in many parts of Bolivia, 

245 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


and the new railroads now building will open up highly 
mineralized territories that will increase the production of 
that metal. Although most of the tin ore now mined here 
is in the form of quartz, prospectors have discovered in 
one of the rivers deposits of stream tin in nuggets and 
lumps that range from the size of an egg to that of my 
two fists or larger. These deposits are said to contain 
fifty-three per cent. of oxide of tin. 

About two hundred and thirty miles southeast of Oruro 
is Potosi, which for hundreds of years was famous as the 
greatest silver-mining centre of South America and one 
of the chief sources of that metal in the whole world. 
First worked about fifty years after Columbus discovered 
the New World, during Spanish rule the mines of - Potosi 
produced more than three thousand million dollars’ 
worth of silver, and it is estimated that their total output 
up to the present time has been worth four thousand 
millions. For nearly three hundred years their average 
yield was at the rate of a million dollars’ worth of silver a 
month. 


When New York was still but a village, Potosi was a 


city of one hundred and fifty thousand people, with 
countless palaces and churches built by the Spaniards. 
Many of them are standing to-day, the churches and 
monasteries especially being rich in relics and carvings. 
Here was established also the first coinage mint in South 
America. The machinery in it was made entirely of wood, 
most of which was carried from the Argentine on the 
backs of Indians. On the hills above Potosi were thirty- 
two artificial lakes, which supplied water for the mines and 
the city. One of the lakes was three miles in circum- 
ference and thirty feet deep. 
246 | 


Oi Jae 


2 NT 


For one hundred years, when silver mining was at its height, Potosi 
was one of the largest cities in the Western Hemisphere, and Spaniards 


grown wealthy from the great mines built fine houses, some of which 
still stand. 


The great peak back of Potosf is honeycombed with mine workings, said 
to number more than seven thousand. In the four hundred years since 


mining began here, the mountain has produced more silver than any 
other equal area in the world. 


THE GREAT TIN MINES 


Potosi is one of the highest cities in Bolivia, lying on the 
plateau at an altitude of 13,612 feet. Behind it, rising 
two thousand feet higher, is a great conical peak, the 
Cerro, which has produced more silver than any other 
area of its size in the world. That mountain is said to 
have thousands of abandoned silver mines scattered 
over it, and its sides are still honeycombed with pro- 
ductive workings, although silver has dropped from the 
high place it once held in the wealth of this country. 

The decline in Bolivian silver mining was due to the 
exhaustion of the more readily accessible veins, the lack 
of operating capital, and the development of rich mines in 
other parts of the world, with the consequent fall in the 
price of the metal. In recent years the industry has 
revived somewhat. Many of the old tailings have been 
worked at a profit, but practically all the silver now 
mined is a by-product of tin. 

In Cerro de Pasco, the silver and the gold mixed with 
the copper practically pay the operating expenses, and the 
value of the copper is almost clear gain. This same condi- 
tion exists in connection with the tin mining at Potosi, 
which is paid for by the silver. The deposits have 
always shown great values in tin, which formerly, through 
the miners’ ignorance, was separated from the silver 
and washed away in the streams. 

Other old and famous silver mines are those of Huan- 
chaca, which were worked by the natives even before the 
Spaniards came. More than nine million pounds of pure 
silver have been taken from them, and the mileage of their 
underground workings is said to be greater than that of 
any other silver mine in the world. 

Bolivia is known to the outside world chiefly for its 


247 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


‘tin and silver, but it is also an important source of copper. 
Except for the Lake Superior region in the United States, 
it is the only country where this metal is found in the 
earth in a pure form. Sometimes copper occurs here 
mixed with sandstone; it is found also in huge masses 
called charquis, and in great sheets or plates covering 
many square feet. I saw one such plate as large as the 
top of an ordinary dining table. 


The copper-producing area centres in Corocoro, a town 


of fifteen thousand inhabitants, mostly Indians, situated 
in a group of low hills six miles from the main line of the 
railway from La Paz to the port of Arica. A spur has 
been built out to that railway, over which the copper is 
taken to Arica for export to the United States and Great 
Britain. The chief mining company now operating is an 
Anglo-French corporation whose mines produce about 
eight thousand tons of pure copper a year. A Chilean 
company has an output about one third as large. 

As to gold, Bolivia produced more than two thousand 
million dollars’ worth of that metal between 1540 and 
1750, but it is now mined only in small quantities, amount- 
ing in all to less than a half million dollars’ worth a year. 
It has been found in the sands near La Paz since the Inca 
reign, and many years ago a nugget as large as the palm 
of my hand was picked up in that region. Near the same 
spot another nugget, weighing thirty-three pounds and 
worth nine thousand dollars, was found in the days of the 
Spaniards. The Chuquiaquillo mine near La Paz pro- 
duced one hundred and twenty-five million dollars’ worth 
lof gold in the eighteenth century. 

For centuries the Indians have been washing gold from 
‘the headwaters of the Beni, and the gravel of that stream 

248 


THE GREAT TIN MINES 


shows colour all the way down to the Amazon, into which 
it flows. It is believed that a great part of the gold of the 
Incas came from there. Some gold is being found in the 
River Quisere, which flows over a bed of quartz upon 
which is an alluvial deposit containing gold that can be 
recovered by dredges. English and American miners 
have long been prospecting in eastern Bolivia. They 
have found that many of the rivers contain gold, but, 
because of their swift currents and underlying beds of 
slate and granite, can be worked only with modern 
machinery. Until better means of transportation are 
provided, there is no practical way to take mining and 
ore-reducing machinery into the interior. 

Another great store of mineral wealth in Bolivia is its 
petroleum. The oil oozes out of the ground in many 
places in the eastern part of the country, and for genera- 
tions has been used by the Indians for lighting and heating. 
In recent years a number of companies have been formed 
for its exploitation. Concessions have been granted to 
Americans to develop some of the oil deposits, and in 
1921 the Standard Oil Company purchased outright a 
tract of eight million acres. The centre of production 
at present is near Santa Cruz, although wells are being 
drilled as far south as the Argentine border. The na- 
tional petroleum law provides that the government 
shall receive a royalty of eleven per cent. of all the oil 
produced. 

The chief difficulty will be in getting the oil to a market. 
The distance across country to the Atlantic seaboard in a 
straight line is considerably more than a thousand miles, 
and sending the oil by that route would necessitate pump- 
ing it over the high plateau of Brazil. If a pipe-line 


249 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


should be run from the lower end of the field down to 
Asunci6n in Paraguay, and thence through the Parana 
Valley to Buenos Aires, the distance would be almost 
twice as great, but the slope would be gradual and unin- 
terrupted all the way to the sea. Such a pipe-line would 
pass through Argentina, where the oil would command 
a ready market for both fuel and lighting. 

Bolivia now controls the world market for bismuth, a 
metal that is used principally in medicines and cosmetics. 
A single company, which has its headquarters in Geneva, 
Switzerland, controls the entire output. During the World 
War Bolivia was also the world’s chief source of tungsten, 
the metal that has taken the place of carbon for ee 
the filaments of electric light bulbs. 

For a long time the mining laws of Bolivia were such 
that a prospector could not protect his claims and es- 
tablish clear titles to them. Shyster lawyers and others 
made a practice of laying claim to every mine supposed 
to be of value and of contesting its title as soon as it ‘was 
registered. During a former visit to Bolivia a mining 
expert said to me: 

‘| might go to the heart of the backwoods in the eastern 
part of this country and stake out a mine a hundred miles 
from where any white man has ever been before, yet I 
venture that within two days after that mine was a 


matter of record there would be a half-dozen applications. 
filed, disputing my title and swearing that the contestant 


had proof that he owned it. This is particularly true of 
any mine that is supposed to be a good prospect, although 


titles are often contested after the mine has been profit- 


ably worked for a long time.”’ 


Such conditions have now been almost entirely remedied, 


250 


THE GREAT TIN MINES 


and since the World War the mining industry in Bolivia 
has been on a sound basis and has grown steadily. The 
use of modern machinery is increasing, new areas are being 
prospected, and the mining companies are doing their 
utmost to provide their staffs and miners with living 
conditions as pleasant as are possible on the high plateau. 
The greater part of the mineral wealth of the republic 1s 
thought to be still under the ground, awaiting better 
means of transportation and sufficient foreign capital 
for its development. 


251 


CHAPTER XXVIII 
DOWNSPOUTS OF THE PLATEAU 


OLIVIA is one of the most shut-in and inaccessible 
countries of the world. Like the neighbouring 
republic of Paraguay, it has no seacoast, but 
while Paraguay has the navigable Paran4 and 
Paraguay rivers, the Bolivian plateau, which contains 
the mineral wealth of the country, has no rivers whatever 
that flow into either ocean. Moreover, only twenty-five 
years ago its capital city had no railway connection with 
the surrounding countries. There were not three hundred 
miles of track in the entire republic when I made my first 
trip here, and to-day the total mileage is only fourteen 
hundred miles, or less than enough to reach from New 
York to Omaha. 

During the past several weeks I have been travelling 
over the routes of the three railways that, like mighty 
ladders, climb from the Pacific Ocean to the lofty Bolivian 
plateau. The most northerly of these gigantic ladders 
is the Southern Railway of Peru, which brought me from 
Mollendo to Lake Titicaca, and thence to the Bolivian 
capital. That line, which is nearly as long as the distance 


from New York to Cleveland, for a long time furnished 


the most important route into Bolivia. Its gradual 
climb up the Andes, the variety of scenery, and the trip 
it offers across Lake Titicaca continue to make it the one 
most favoured by travellers. 

252 


DOWNSPOUTS OF THE PLATEAU 


As a freight route the Mollendo line has been super- 
seded by Bolivia’s other two outlets to the Pacific. One 
of them is from the Chilean port of Arica, the terminus of 
the newest, shortest, and steepest railroad from the coast 
to La Paz. The other is the Bolivian and Antofagasta 
Railway, which climbs up the mountains from Anto- 
fagasta, and then winds its way northward along the 
plateau to the Bolivian capital. 

This republic is still at the beginning of its railroad 
development, a fact that is not surprising when one 
considers the formation of the country. The lines on the 
plateau were comparatively easy to construct, but every 
route down to the sea has had to cross mountain passes 
thirteen or fourteen thousand feet high. Labour is 
scarce on the plateau, and the altitude is so great that 
workers brought in from other countries cannot stand the 
thinness of the air. On the western slopes of the moun- 
tains much of the road-bed was practically cut out of the 
rock. In the lower regions east of the plateau the heavy 
rainfall causes innumerable washouts and slides, necessi- 
tating expensive reinforcing along every stretch of track. 
One authority says that the railways already built here 
have cost an average of fifty thousand dollars a mile. 

The beginning of modern railroad development in 
Bolivia followed the transfer to Brazil of the Acre Terri- 
tory near the head-waters of the Amazon. In return, 
the Bolivian government was paid ten million dollars, 
with which it decided to build railways. Later, other 
money was borrowed to continue the work of construc- 
tion. 

' In the meantime the development of the airplane has 
furnished a new means of transportation in this land 


253 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


of vast mountain ranges and few railroads and highways. 
A school of aviation has been established in La Paz, and 
Bolivia in the not far distant future will no doubt have a 
system of air routes similar to that of Colombia. In 
1920 an American aviator employed as a government 
flying instructor flew over IJlimani at an elevation of more 
than twenty-five thousand feet. The Bolivian army 
officer accompanying him fainted from the effects of the 
high altitude. 

Perhaps the most important railway of the republic is 
the Antofagasta and Bolivian. That line is about seven 
hundred miles long, and the trip over it takes forty-three 
hours. There are two trains a week each way, equipped 
with sleepers and dining cars. From Antofagasta, the 
chief port of northern Chile, one goes over the nitrate 
fields and across the Chilean desert to the Bolivian 
frontier. During the first two hundred and twenty-three 
miles the train reaches an altitude of thirteen thousand 
feet. It drops about eight hundred feet to a great borax 
lake, and then begins to climb over the mountains to the 
Bolivian plateau. Oruro is reached the next morning, and 
La Paz about eight hours later. 

The Antofagasta road is one of the famous scenic routes 
of the world, and geologically and geographically it is one 
of the most interesting. Parts of the plateau, which was 
the bed of the great inland sea that once covered this 
region, are as flat as a floor. The road goes for miles 
over stretches of sand, and | am told that sea shells and 
traces of fossilized fish have been found here. Part of the 
route is past volcanoes and mountains of lava of the most 
unusual formations. The road is also important com- 
mercially, being the great down-the-mountain chute for 


254 


Bolivia suffers from lack of means of communication. Building of both 
railroads and highways proceeds slowly in the mountain regions, and 
transport by pack animals has become far more expensive than formerly. 


While the best trains from Bolivia to the Pacific coast are equipped with 


dining cars, the bulk of the native passengers depend on the outdoor re- 
freshment stands at the stations en route. 


The ancient Indians of the Andean plateau built only with stone, chiefly 
because they had practically no wood. Their descendants today use 
primitive tools and methods in cutting and shaping timber. 


DOWNSPOUTS OF THE PLATEAU 


most of the tin and silver ore of the Bolivian plateau, as 
well as for the nitrate, the borax, and the copper of Chile. 

The first section of the La Paz-Antofagasta line, which 
was also the first railway in Bolivia, was the narrow- 
gauge road built from the town of Uyuni to the coast as 
an outlet for the Huanchaca silver mines. It was opened 
to traffic in 1889, and three years later was extended north 
to Oruro. After that, its construction remained practi- 
cally at a standstill for twenty years. When the Acre 
Territory was conceded to Brazil, plans were made for the 
extension of the road. New York bankers undertook its 
completion to the capital, as well as the construction of 
several branch lines. That was in 1906, and seven years 
later the extension to La Paz was opened to traffic. In 
the meantime, the controlling interest of the road had been 
sold to an English company. 

In 1917 a branch line was completed from Oruro one 
hundred and twenty-five miles eastward to Cochabamba, 
the chief distributing point for the rich agricultural regions 
of eastern Bolivia. It crosses the divide of Cuesta 
Colorada and descends into the lower altitude by a series 
of switchbacks over one of the most beautiful scenic routes 
on the continent. Surveys have already been made for 
the purpose of extending that line three hundred miles 
farther to Santa Cruz. Eventually it will undoubtedly 
be built eastward another four hundred miles to Puerto 
Suarez, from where steamers go down the Paraguay 
River to the Atlantic. 

Another branch of the Antofagasta and Bolivia Railway 
has been built from the main line to the silver and tin 
mining town of Potosi. The station of Condor on that 
spur ranks with Ticlio on the Peruvian Central as one of 


255 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


the highest points on this continent reached by railway. 
An extension of that line to Sucre, the old capital, is now 
under way, and its completion will undoubtedly lead to 
the reopening of many abandoned colonial mines along 
the route. In the meantime, freight and passengers are 
carried by automobile between Sucre and the end of the 
line. 

Probably the most important railway under construc- 
tion is that extending southward from Uyuni on the La 
Paz-Antofagasta line and northward from Villazon on the 
Argentine frontier. When the two sectors are united, 
Bolivia will have completed her share of the proposed Pan- 
American route from New York to Buenos Aires. The 
only countries that have already finished their allotments 
toward that great line of the future are Chile, Uruguay, 
and Argentina. The latter country now has railway 
service from Buenos Aires to La Quiaca, which is just 
across the border from Villazon. On the Bolivian branch 
there is a gap of only fifty miles or so, over which freight 
and passengers are now carried by motor truck from May 
to November, and by mule stage the remainder of the 
year. 

The completion of this sector of the Pan-American will 
give through railway connection between La Paz and 
Buenos Aires, and will open a back door, as it were, forthe 
commerce of Bolivia. It will form the last link in South 
America’s second transcontinental railroad, the other 
Atlantic-to-Pacific route now in operation being the 
Transandine Railway from Santiago to Buenos Aires. 
That line is so far south that traffic is often snowbound in 
winter. The Bolivian-Argentine route will be near enough 
to the Equator to be free from heavy snows. It will offer 

256 


( 
Al 


i 


DOWNSPOUTS OF THE PLATEAU 


a shorter journey to the Argentine for travellers from 
Peru and Ecuador, and will make the cattle, the wheat, 
and the dairy products of Argentina and Uruguay quickly 
available on the high plateau. Buenos Aires will then 
be only three and a half days from La Paz. It will be four 
hundred and fifty miles nearer New York by way of that 
railway and the Panama Canal than it is now by the all- 
water Atlantic route. | 

While the project for railway connection with the At- 
lantic was still in its earliest stages, Bolivia acquired an- 
other outlet to the Pacific. This was the La Paz-Arica 
line, which was built by Chile as an outcome of the long 
controversy over the ownership of the strip of coast land 
formerly controlled by Bolivia. 

Bolivia originally owned the Chilean province of Anto- 
fagasta between its present boundary and the sea. In 
that province, which is rich in nitrate, is not only the 
city of the same name, but three other important ports as 
well. In 1866, and again in 1874, arrangements were 
made between Bolivia and Chile for the joint possession of 
the nitrate fields, but their control continued to be a sub- 
ject of dispute between the two countries. In 1879, with 
Chile’s seizure of the port of Antofagasta and her declara- 
tion of war against Bolivia and her ally, Peru, hostilities 
were begun. 

The Treaty of Ancén, which ended the fighting, was 
signed in 1883. By its terms, Chile took possession of the 
Peruvian province of Tarapaca, while the provinces of 
Tacna and Arica, farther north, were to be occupied by 
Chile for ten years, at the end of which time a plebiscite 
was to be taken to determine their ownership. That 
plebiscite was postponed from time to time for various 


\ 257 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


reasons, and when Chile finally agreed to hold it Peru main- 
tained that Tacna and Arica had been under Chilean in- 
fluence and government too many years for such a method 
of deciding the issue to be still fair. No settlement agree- 
able to both countries could be arrived at, and it remained 
for the United States, in 1922, to make an effort to bring 
Peru and Chile to an amicable agreement. Our govern- 
ment invited the two republics to send representatives to 
Washington for a conference, at the completion of which, 
if necessary, the President of the United States will act as 
arbiter. 

In the meantime, although Chile had obtained possession 
of Tacna-Arica and Tarapaca, those provinces were cut off 
from the rest of the republic by Antofagasta, still claimed 
by Bolivia. Bolivia’s possession of her one remaining 
strip of seacoast did not last long, however, and the year 
after the Treaty of Ancén saw that province under the 
provisional control of Chile. In 1901 Bolivia relinquished 
all claims to Antofagasta, in return for which Chile agreed 
to build a railway from Arica to La Paz, and to turn over 
the Bolivian section to this country at the end of fifteen 
years. 

The line was opened to traffic in 1913 under the control 
of the Chilean State Railways. Well-equipped passenger 
trains cover the distance of two hundred and seventy-nine 
miles in twenty-two hours, or less than half the time re- 
quired to go from La Paz to either Antofagasta or Mol- 
lendo. The route is so short, however, that the quick 
transition from the coast to the plateau frequently causes 
soroche, and therefore most passengers prefer a longer and 
more gradual ascent up the mountains. 

The Arica line is most valuable to Bolivia as a freight 

258 


Motor roads have proved especially beneficial in connecting the cold 
barren plateau with the tropical valleys below, thus making the food prod- 
ucts of the latter readily available to the people living on the heights. 


The Indians who inhabit the great basin drained by the headwaters of 
the Amazon are expert raftsmen. The density of the tropical forests 
makes the streams the chief arteries of travel and communication. 


DOWNSPOUTS OF THE PLATEAU 


carrier. In fact, the freight traffic is so great that it is 
often congested, especially at some of the steep grades, 
where trains are divided and a few cars taken up ata time. 
In a recent year the road handled sixty-one per cent. of all 
the imports into Bolivia, as compared with thirty-seven 
per cent. coming through Mollendo and two per cent. 
through Antofagasta. | 
Arica is important not only as a port, but also as a 
Strategic point on the west coast. It is located in an 
oasis in the desert, and could easily be made the base of 
naval operations in case of war. In the War of the 
Pacific in 1879-1884, the Peruvians made their last stand 
here on the top of the famous “Morro,” a high, precipi- 
tous cliff rising up from the sea. | 
The harbour of Arica is protected by an island and bya 
reef connected with the mainland. It is the chief copper- 
exporting port for Bolivia. Much of that metal goes to 
Tacoma, Washington, and the total amount taken by the 
United States is increasing yearly. As the line is far to the 
north of the centre of the tin and silver mining district, 
most of those metals are exported through Antofagasta. 
Because of the transshipment necessary at Lake Titicaca, 
very few Bolivian exports go out through Mollendo. 
Minerals comprise fully ninety per cent. of Bolivia’s 
exports, and practically all of them go through Arica or 
Antofagasta. Rubber, another important product, is 
exported largely through Brazil. Other exports of con- 
siderable value are coca, coffee, hides, and quinine, some 
of which go out of the country by way of Argentina. A 
certain amount of ore also is shipped by that route. 
About half of all the exports of Bolivia are taken by 
Great Britain. I find the commercial houses of that 


259 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


country in all the cities and see British manufactured 
goods everywhere. British capital also financed much of 
the industrial and railway development of the republic. 
I am told, however, that for a long time Great Britain had 
neither commercial nor diplomatic representatives in this 
country. Relations between the two governments were 
broken off in the 60’s as a result, it is said, of an indignity 
to which the British minister was subjected at La Paz. 
Bolivia was then under the rule of the dictator Melgarejo, 
who demanded that particular homage be paid to his 
mistress by the guests at one of his official receptions. 
This the minister refused to do. Melgarejo was furious 
and the next day caused the offending diplomat to be tied 
to the back of a mule facing the animal’s tail and driven 
about the plaza of La Paz. 

_ When the minister returned to England and reported his 
ignominious treatment at the hands of Melgarejo, Queen 
Victoria in great indignation demanded a map so that she 
could see where Bolivia was. Then, as the story goes, 
when she learned that the location of La Paz made re- 
dress impossible by means of a British warship, she 


seized a pen and crossed the country off the map, ex- 


claiming: 


“As far as England is concerned, Bolivia no longer 


exists!” 


It was forty years or so before England again sent an 


official representative here. 

Another story of this same Melgarejo is that when the 
Franco-Prussian War was declared he decided to offer the 
services of his army to France. His soldiers were mobil- 
ized and started on the march. As they left La Paz 
behind them, one of the generals of the army, though trem- 

260 * 


A. 


DOWNSPOUTS OF THE PLATEAU 


bling at his presumption in daring to question his com- 
mander, mustered up his courage and ventured to ask 
what arrangements had been made for crossing the ocean. 

“Ocean! shouted Melgarejo. ‘What ocean?’ 

Needless to say, when he had been enlightened on a few 
facts of elementary geography, his army’s destination was 
changed to La Paz instead of France. 

Next to Great Britain, Bolivia’s best customer for its 
exports is the United States. We take more than forty 
per cent. of all that it sells, and at the same time lead in fur- 
nishing its imports. The principal articles it buys from 
us are mining machinery, cotton goods, sacks for shipping 
ore, and food-stuffs. Ina recent year wheat flour was the 
chief commodity imported; much of it came from the 
United States and the rest from Chile. 

Because of the high cost of coal and the lack of developed 
water-power, together with the limited supply of raw 
materials on the plateau, there is little manufacturing in 
Bolivia. However, the business man who attempts to sell 
large quantities of expensive manufactured goods here is 
wasting his time. The Indians comprise more than half 
the entire population of the country, and their wants will 
be strictly limited for years to come. Most of them know 
nothing about luxury articles, and could not afford them if 
they did. Some cholos, it is true, spend their money freely 
on showy jewellery, toilet articles, and gaudy wearing 
apparel, and, when they can, buy brass bedsteads and 
other furniture of what they consider a highly ornamental 
type. Although the wealthy Bolivians have homes as 
beautifully furnished as can be found anywhere, and pay 
more attention to dress than we do, they number a very 
small proportion of the entire population. Indeed, a 

261 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


survey made a few years ago disclosed the fact that there 
were not more than a hundred Bolivian families with an 
income exceeding ten thousand dollars a year. 

Foreign commercial firms in the past have often made 
the mistake of sending representatives to the plateau to 
sell merchandise adapted for use in warm countries. A 
story is told of one salesman who came into Bolivia with 
huge sample cases packed with all kinds of tropical goods 
such as he had been selling in Brazil. When he reached 
the high plateau, imagine his consternation at finding a 
climate so cold that he was uncomfortable even after he 
had put on his heaviest clothing. Being obliged to eat 
in his overcoat was the last straw, and he took the next 
train back to the coast. Only when it was too late for the 
knowledge to be of any use to him did he learn that he 
could have gone over the mountains and down to Cocha- 
bamba and found a market for all his goods. 

As in Peru, the firm of W. R. Grace and Company has 
been long a power in Bolivia. It helped to negotiate the 
first great railroad loan for the country, and through it 
vame large importations of American machinery, rails, 
and rolling stock. It was also largely responsible for 
bringing in the American engineers who laid out the 
lines and superintended the construction. The firm now 
has sales agencies in every part of the republic, and its 
La Paz establishment is the biggest wholesale house in 
Bolivia. 

During my stay here I have had a talk with the local 
director of this American company. He was born in 
Bolivia, and thoroughly understands the people and their 
needs. He is also well posted as to our American in- 
terests, having had some experience in the United States 

262 


Backwoods Bolivia contains more than half the area of the republic, is 
six times as big as Illinois, and although now undeveloped is potentially one 
of the richest agricultural and forest regions in the world. 


The coca leaf, which the Indians chew for its narcotic effect, grows on 
the eastern slopes of the Andean range. Its culture is much like that 
of tea, which can also be raised here. 


DOWNSPOUTS OF THE PLATEAU 


in a diplomatic capacity. I asked him particularly about 
credit in Bolivia, to which he replied: 

“The Bolivian merchants pay for what they order, and 
there is no trouble in making collections. The national 
credit is also good, and has been ever since the first loan 
made in New York for financing our railroads. Before 
that time it was almost impossible for us to get money 
from Europe. When I went to London to borrow a mil- 
lion dollars to build a railroad from Lake Titicaca to 
La Paz, | could not get any one to listen to me. After 
the New York loan was made, the financial powers of 
Europe began to wake up. They decided that if the 
credit of Bolivia was good enough for the Americans it 
ought to be good enough for them, and since then we have 
had no trouble in borrowing.” 


263 


CHAPTER XXIX 
THE BACKWOODS OF BOLIVIA 


AST of the Andes is a Bolivia that seems almost 
another world when compared with the high 
plateau and mountain regions over which I have 
been travelling. It is the backwoods of the re- 

public, inhabited chiefly by savages, and is almost an 
unknown land. Nevertheless, it contains more than half 
the area of the whole country, and is said to be one of the 
richest regions in the world. 

Trans-Andean Bolivia is one tenth as big as the United 
States. It is equal to six states the size of Illinois, and 
is much larger than either Germany or France. It con- 
sists of fertile plains that slope from the mountains toward 
the east, south, and north, gradually falling to a general 
level where the highest points are only about sixteen 
hundred feet above the sea. The plain loses itself at the 
north in the Amazon Valley, and at the east and south in 
the valleys of the Paraguay and the Parana. 

The region is, in fact, a continuation of the great cattle 
lands of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, and it may 
eventually furnish a part of the meat supply of the conti- 
nent. Along the banks of the Pilcomayo River near 
Paraguay roam thousands of wild cattle, descendants of 
the stray animals that wandered from the early ranches 
of northern Argentina. There are wild cattle also in 
northern Bolivia not far from a tract of five million acres 

264 


THE BACKWOODS OF BOLIVIA 


taken up by a Brazilian land and cattle company. That 
tract has the finest of pasture, and is already stocked with 
hundreds of thousands of beef cattle. A short extension 
of the Brazilian railways would reach the Bolivian pasture 
lands and bring them much nearer the Atlantic seaboard 
than are our cattle lands west of the Mississippi, from 
where we have shipped vast quantities of meat to Europe. 

The eastern section of the republic is agriculturally, 
by far the best part of Bolivia, and may some day support 
a great population. It is well watered by tributaries of 
the Amazon and the Paranda, and has sufficient rainfall for 
crops. The region is one of the largest blocks of good un- 
developed land in the world, much of it reserabling the 
prairies of Illinois and Iowa of fifty years ago. The cli- 
mate is exceptionally healthful. 

Much of eastern Bolivia is still inaccessible and cannot 
be opened up to colonization until it is tapped by railways. 
There is now no way to reach these fertile backwoods 
except on foot or on muleback, and there are no practical 
means for marketing farm products. Nevertheless, col- 
onists and land promoters are anticipating the railways 
that will be built before many years, and more and more 
land is being taken up by settlers. In 1923, for example, 
a tract of forty-seven thousand acres not far from the rail- 
way that is to connect Buenos Aires and La Paz was 
leased for ninety-nine years by a former congressman of 
the United States. 

In the southeastern corner of the republic much of the 
land is a part of the region known as the Gran Chaco, 
which extends into Paraguay and Argentina. In con- 
trast with the well-watered region about the Amazon head- 
waters, it is almost riverless, and will never be important 

265 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


agriculturally, Farther west and higher up, however, 
are grassy rolling plains that are beginning to be stocked 
with herds of domestic cattle. Cheese is still the only 
dairy product of any importance, but in some places 
water-power has been utilized for the manufacture of ice 
for butter making. This district is not far from the 
modern farms and villages of northern Argentina, and 
promises some day to be quite as important. 

[ have already spoken of the projected line from Cocha- 
bamba to Santa Cruz, which lies in the heart of the oil 
country, and which will eventually be a great railroad 
centre. The city is also the centre of the republic geo- 
graphically. It is now connected with the rail-head at 
Cochabamba by mule trail and motor road. There are 
also roads leading from it south to the railway at La 
Quiaca on the Argentine border, and to Puerto Suarez on 
the Paraguay River. The first automobile driven over the 
latter road made the trip in less than five days of actual 
travelling, although ox carts take from thirty to forty 
days when the road is in its best condition. In the wet 
season the government mail carrier rides over the route 
on the backs of bullocks. 

Although some of the roads of eastern Bolivia are used 
by motor trucks and automobiles during the dry season, 
most of them are mere trails that can be followed only on 
muleback, or at best by the native ox carts. The carts 
are made entirely of wood and usually proceed through the 
country accompanied by the rasping creaks of their un- 
greased wooden axles. During recent years some four- 
wheeled wagons of foreign manufacture have been brought 
in. 

East of Cochabamba some of the land is irrigated and 

266 


THE BACKWOODS OF BOLIVIA. 


produces large crops of alfalfa, maize, grapes, vegetables, 
and wheat. Some of the best seed of the United States 
and Argentina has been imported to encourage the pro- 
duction of wheat in Bolivia. The Indians of this region 
have an unusual method of threshing their crop. Two or 
three native musicianssit on the top of a stack of grain play- 
ing their weird melodies on reed pipes, while several mules 
are driven round and round at the base of the stack. 
Bundles of wheat are thrown down in front of the animals, 
which trample out the grain with their hoofs. Other In- 
dians form a circle surrounding the stack, with ropes 
stretched between them to keep the mules from running 
away. 

In the same region can be grown cacao and tobacco, and 
also Indian corn. Indeed, eastern Bolivia promises to be 
one of the great corn countries of the future. As many as 
twenty-seven different varieties are grown, some with 
grains not bigger than those of pop-corn, while the kernels 
of others are as large as the end of my thumb. 

Eastern Bolivia may also be one of the cotton lands of 
the future. Farmers who have experimented with seed 
from America and Egypt find that cotton can be grown 
up to an altitude of eight or nine thousand feet above the 
sea. Indeed, some good cotton is being raised both here 
and in Peru in the depressions of the high plateau and on 
the slopes that lead down into the valleys. When I 
asked the governor of the Peruvian department of Cuzco 
about the agricultural development of the Andean region, 
he brought out some cotton bolls grown on his own farm. 
The lint was comparatively short, but was beautifully 
white and silky. That cotton was planted in January and 
was ready for picking in August. 

267 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


The governor said that tea also grew well there, and 
that he believed the mountainsides bordering the valley of 
Cuzco might some day be covered with tea plantations. 
So far, tea bushes have been cultivated only on a small 
scale, the seed having been imported from Japan and 
‘China. The plants are easily raised, and, as the labour 
needed costs only a few dollars a month, it is thought that 
the business can be made a profitable one. 

One of the reasons for the tea experiments has been the 
hope that it might take the place of coca, which, owing 
to the fluctuation in the price of cocaine, often yields prac- 
tically no profits. Coca is raised on vast tracts in Peru 
and Bolivia, thriving particularly in the temperate alti- 
tudes of the Yungas. It is set out in terraces, and begins 
to bear the second year after sprouting. The leaves are 
then stripped from the shrub, dried and pressed into bales 
of fifty pounds each, and sent on muleback to La Paz. 
\Most of the coca of Bolivia is sold to the natives, although 
considerable quantities are exported to Argentina and 
Chile, and some to England. 

Another medicinal product of this part of Bolivia is 
quinine, which is made from the bark of the cinchona tree. 
Quinine is often called Peruvian bark, as the first used in 
[Europe came from Peru. For a long time Bolivia and 
'Peru had a monopoly on quinine productton, and in order 
to hold it they forbade the sending of cinchona seeds out 
of the country. However, some were taken to Ceylon and 
other parts of India, where plantations were started, and 
within a few years the Indian quinine was competing with 
that of South America. Later still the seeds were carried 
to Java, which is now producing most of the quinine of the 
world. 

268 


THE BACKWOODS OF BOLIVIA 


With the development of the plantation product, the' 
Bolivian bark was unable to hold its former place in the 
world market, and the fall in prices brought financial ruin 
to many Bolivians. The bark at one time was so cheap 
that it did not pay to cut it and carry it to the markets. 
Although the industry has now revived somewhat here, it 
still yields only a small profit. 

The great forests in which the cinchona trees are found 
cover about one fifth of trans-Andean Bolivia, and contain 
timber as good as any in South America. The cabinet 
woods include ebony, walnut, mahogany, cedar, and 
quebracho. Some of it is so hard it will turn the edge of an 
ax, and most of it takes a beautiful polish. Many varieties 
are so heavy that the logs will not float. 

The forest regions contain so many rubber trees that 
Bolivia ranks next to Brazil in the total production of 
South America. The rubber comes from two varieties 
of trees. One has to be cut down to yield its latex, or sap, 
while the other is tapped. The usual procedure is to tap 
the trees for a certain number of years and then let them 
remain idle for a like period. The trees grow wild on 
millions of acres in northern Bolivia across the border from 
the great rubber lands of Brazil, and when the region 
is opened up by railroads the annual yield of the country 
will be increased many times. Even now rubber ranks 
next to minerals among Bolivia’s exports, although the 
fact that the country has no seaport has caused much of 
its product in the past to be marketed as Par4 rubber, from 
the Brazilian port through which most of it is exported. 

I have heard many stories about the Indians and the 
wild animals of the vast unexplored backwoods country 
that slopes down to the Amazon Valley. In crossing 

269 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 
Lake Titicaca, I travelled with an American railroad 
contractor engaged on one of the lines now under con- 
struction. He had been taking a vacation of two or three 
months, and had just returned from a gold-prospecting 
tour along the Madre de Dios, one of the tributaries of the 
Amazon. Travelling on foot, he followed the course of 
that river through lands known only to the Indians. 
Starting from Cuzco with a guide, an interpreter, and eight 
Indians, he crossed mountains more than sixteen thousand 
feet high, making his way from their glaciers and perpetual 
snows down into a tropical jungle less than a half mile 
above sea level. 

As we sat in the rude hotel at Guaqui, my companion 
told me something of the animal life he had seen. He said 
that the country swarms with game, including wild 
turkeys. Their meat is excellent and tastes like that of 
our wild turkey. In the woods are droves of peccaries, or 
wild hogs, and also tapirs and jaguars. The jaguars came 
around the camp at night, and were seen now and then 
as the party made its way through the forest. 

As much of the journey was along the banks of the river, 
all that was necessary whenever a fish dinner was wanted 
was to explode a dynamite cap in the water. A moment 
later the surface would be covered with dead fish, some as 
long as a man’s arm, and of a delicious flavour. Besides 
their various finny inhabitants, these streams are alive 
with alligators. These reptiles are dangerous, and the 
natives will not go into the waters they infest. 

Most of the Indians of backwoods Bolivia are not 
friendly to foreigners. Their chief weapons are bows and 
arrows, but they do not seem to have any knowledge of 
the use of poison on the latter. ‘The members of one of the 

270 


The peoples of the upper Amazon basin are still very primitive, and 
have had little contact with whites. Here they are making a wedding 
ceremony binding by smashing one stone upon another. 


Some of the trans-Andean tribes live chiefly upon game, which they 
hunt with bows and arrows. At times they paint their faces and engage 
in ceremonial dances and orgies of drinking a fermented liquor. 


THE BACKWOODS OF BOLIVIA 


tribes, the Yuracarés, live in family groups. The boys 
marry at sixteen and the girls at fourteen. If the first 
child born to a couple is a girl, it is allowed to starve to 
death. They seem to have no gods or objects of worship, 
but at frequent intervals they hold a ceremony in which 
they decorate themselves with gay costumes, paint their 
faces with blue or black spots, and indulge in songs and 
dances. 

The gayety of the celebration is usually increased by 
liberal drinks of an intoxicating liquor made from the 
yucca plant. In making it, they peel and cook the roots of 
that vegetable and then chew them as corn is chewed in the 
preparation of chicha. The saliva-soaked mixture, when 
thinned with water, soon starts to ferment. 

Missions have been established to civilize the Yuracarés 
but with no great success. These Indians are compara- 
tively tractable, and learn to cultivate the soil and follow 
the white man’s customs, but a family is liable at any time 
to run off and revert to the savage mode of living. It is 
said that salt is one of the chief factors in keeping the 
Indians at the missions. If they stay long enough to be- 
come accustomed to its use, they cannot withstand their 
craving for it when they return to the wilds. 

Another tribe of eastern Bolivia is that of the warlike 
Sirionés. Their food is largely game, and they hunt with 
bows and arrows so powerful that they have to use both 
hands and feet to shoot them. Farther south are the 
peaceful Chiriguanos, who paint their faces and bodies 
with gaudy colours, and wear plugs or buttons in their lips. 
None of these lowland Indians wear as many clothes as do 
the Quichuas and Aymaras of the cold plateau, and they 
are generally more cleanly. They bathe frequently in the 

271 


LANDS OF THE ANDES AND THE DESERT 


streams, and wash their garments by pounding them be- 
tween stones. 

At present, these wild tribes have but little contact 
with the white man, and for the most part are still free to 
live as they please. Their descendants, however, will 
undoubtedly see all their country opened up by the forces 
of our money-making civilization and the heart of the 
South American continent yielding up food and other prod- 
ucts for the satisfaction of the wants of mankind. The 
great progress already made in the more developed por- 
tions of these countries in the years between my trips here 
is only an indication of the even greater things to come. 


272 


INDEX 


Pa 4 


aia’ tur 


« eRe atl iN ra Iemerees 


& 
ean 


atl yar 
rey: he ANI Nee 
Mure nin 


Or aie ay 


hl) iy 


My ‘ ue 
in , a \ a a 
‘i Meeny FAY 


irae aia Na ee AA ag 
ae tat has Aah RM eae hs ae 
ae ih Hen ib ehh Ais ty Ane ; anes a 


a 


Too cy, 1 
, ee 4 


ey Ais A) i 
A ituoag t 444 ' 
met Wacpuel pati wie 
Bont he Bie Ais oH) oH Mee ; 
Wuatby oa wh PAT Oy =| 
ese ih ty oy, Nei 


PaUaEY 


He seirateal va 


I; fe Maia ‘ 


INDEX 


Agricultural Association of Ecuador, 
organization of, 40. 

Agricultural experiments on the high 
Andes, 138. 

Agriculture, in Bolivia, 260. 

Aguarunas, warlike Indians of Ecua- 
dor, 59. 

Airplanes, development of mail and 
passenger traffic, 2; service between 
Barranquilla, Girardot, and Bogota, 
12; rates for passengers and mail, 
13; Colombian War Department 
establishes national school of avia- 
tion, 13; newspaper delivery service 
inaugurated by El Telégrafo at 
Guayaquil, 29; air routes being 
developed in Bolivia, 253. 

Alcohol, natives become slaves to, 174 
et seq.; how sold, 177. 

Alpacas, and their wool, 143; domesti- 
cated by the Incas, 147. 

Amazon, proposed railway from Oro- 
ya, Peru, to tributaries of, 101. 

American goods, in Peru, 89, 106. 

American Institute at La Paz, of great 
service to the Indian, 229. 

Andes, wonderful formations of the, 
124. 

Antioquia province, chief gold region 
of Colombia, 18. 

Antofagasta, formerly Bolivian ter- 
ritory, 257. 

Antofagasta and Bolivian Railway, 

‘ one of the famous scenic routes of 
the world, 254. 

Arequipa, metropolis of 
Peru, 127 et seq. 

Argentina, comparative size, 3. 

Arica, important port and strategic 
point, 259. 

Astronomical observatory of Harvard 
University at Arequipa, 132. 

Astronomy, of the Incas, 148. 

Atahualpa, Inca king, killed by 
Pizarro, 71, 148. 


southern 


Automobiles, in Guayaquil, 25. 

Aymara Indians, their legends of the 
Creation, and the Flood, 220; their 
ancient history and present con- 
dition, 223 et seq. 


Bailey, Professor, establishes meteor- 
ological station on Mount Misti, in 
Peru, 134. 

Bananas, production of and value of 
foreign trade in, of Colombia, 15. 
Bandelier, Professor Adolph,  re- 
searches in ruins of Tiahuanaco, 218. 
Barranca Bermeja, oil refinery estab- 
lished at, by American corporation, 


21; 

Barranquilla, distance from New 
York, 11. 

Beni River, Bolivia, much gold washed 
from, 248. 

Bingham, Professor Hiram, discovers 
ruins of Mechu-Picchu, 154. 

Bismuth, the world market controlled 
by Bolivia, 250. 

Blow-gun, favourite weapon of Ecua- 
dor Indians, 57. 

Boats, formed of reeds, used on Lake 
Titicaca, 191. . 

Bodegas, a town built in the water, 35. 

Bogota, beauty of the airplane route 
to, 13; history of city and points of 
interest, 14. 

Bolivar, Simon, the Emancipator, 196. 

Bolivia, comparative size, 3; the Tibet 
of South America, 184 ef seq.; at- 
tains independence, 196; its size 

- and resources, 197; The President 
and government branches, 201; a 
ride on the government mail coach, 
235; the great tin mines, 240 ef seq.; 
weakness of her mining laws, 250; 
extent of the railroad system, 252; 
extent of trade with Great Britain, 
259, with United States, 261; credit 
of merchants excellent in Europe 


279 


INDEX 


and the United States, 263; the 
rich lands in the backwoods of the 
republic, 264 et seq. 

Borden, Uriah H., donor of astronomi- 
cal observatory at Arequipa to 
Harvard University, 133. 

Bows and arrows, the chief weapons of 
Bolivian Indians, 270. 

Brazil, comparative size, 3. 

Bubonic plague, prevalent in Guaya- 
rte 29, until city cleaned up by 

eneral Gorgas, 31. 

Bucay, railroad town in Ecuador, 46. 

Buenaventura, chief Pacific port of 
Colombia, 11. 

Bull-fighting, in Lima, 76. 

Buried treasure of the Incas, stories of, 
165 ef seq. 


Caamafio Tenguel Estate, largest 
cacao plantation in Ecuador, 41. 
Cachibos, cannibal Indians in Peru, 


58. 

Cacao, its production, and export, 39. 

Cajamarca, Peru, ancient city of the 
Incas, 71. 

Cali, metropolis of Cauca Valley, 
Colombia, 12. 

Callao, Peru, port of entry for Lima, 


, Qi. 
Canar, Ecuador, silver deposits at, 


34- 

Cannibalism, among Indians of the 
Andes, 58. 

Casapalca, station on Central Rail- 
way of Peru, too. 

Cathedral of Cuzco, one of the finest 
in South America, 157, 158; story 
of its building, 166. 

Catholicism, principal religion in 
Ecuador, 49. 

Cats, a rarity in La Paz, 210. 

Cattle, on the Peruvian plateau, 140, 
in Trans-Andean Bolivia, 264. | 
Cauca River Valley, one of the most 
beautiful and productive regions of 

South America, 11. 

Central Railway of Peru, highest rail- 
road in the world, 93 et seg.; gravity 
car trip down the Andes, 121. 

Cerro de Pasco, mining town on the 
top of the Andes, 104, et seq. 

Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation, 
an American syndicate, 104, 113. 

Cerro de Pasco silver and copper 


mines, 95, 112, ef seg.; copper prac- 
tically a by-product, 247. 

Chachani, Mount, near Arequipa, 
Peru, 129, meteorological station 
formerly on, 133. 

Chagres fever, prevalence at Guaya- 
quil, 30. 

Chalona, dried mutton preserved 
through a freezing process, 225. 

Chibchas, once a highly developed 
race now slaves to alcohol and the 
coca leaf, 174. 

Chicha, the native intoxicant, 178. 

Chicken yards on the roofs, a custom 
in Lima, Peru, 78. 

Child “‘slavery,”’ in Peru and Bolivia, 
224. 

Chile, comparative size, 3, wars with 
Bolivia and Peru for possession of 
nitrate fields, 257. 

Chilean State Railways, line opened 
up from Arica to La Paz, 258. 

Chimborazo, Mount, overlooking 
Guayaquil, 25; sulphur deposits of, 
34 

Chirimoya, a strange fruit in the La 
Paz markets, 206 

Chocolate, introduced into Europe 
by Cortés, 41 

Cholas, the, of La Paz, 207 

Chorillos, Bay of, summer resort of 
Lima, Peru, 79 

Chosica, winter resort of Lima, Peru, 
79; summer resort, 99 

Chuiotto, Antonio, founds industrial 
mission school for Bolivian Indians, 


227 

Chulic, modern village of the Cerro 
de Pasco Copper Corporation, 117 

Chulpas, mummies of the, in La Paz 
museum, 222 

Chuiio, frozen and dried potatoes, 162; 
in the La Paz markets, 206 

Chuquiaquillo gold mine, near La 
Paz, production of, 248 

Churches of Cuzco, great number of, 
156, 157 

Coal, abundant in Colombia, 24 

Coasting down the Andes by rail, 120 

Coati, or Island of the Moon, in Lake 
Titicaca, 190 

Coca, the source of cocaine, 161; the 
curse of the present-day Indian, 
174 et seq.; its use by the Incas, 176; 
how marketed and used, 177; an 


276 


INDEX 


important export of Bolivia, 259; 
great tracts devoted to culture, in 
Bolivia, and Peru, 268 

Cochabamba, largest town, next to La 
Paz, in Bolivia, 200 

Cocoa, possibilities in Colombia, 15 

Coffee, chief crop of Colombia, 15; 
important export of Ecuador, 42; 
an important product of Bolivia, 


259 

Colombia, size, topography and cli- 
mate, 9; relative distances from the 
United States, 10; establishes mod- 
ern fiscal system with American 
treaty payments, 10; early settle- 
ment, 14; agricultural resources, 14; 
great need of railways, 16; most 
of country’s freight transported on 
river systems, 16; chief gold- 
producing country of the Spanish 
possessions, 18; second country in 
the world in production of platinum, 
20; development of rich petroleum 
fields, 21; produces world’s supply 
of emeralds under State monopoly, 


22 

Copacabana, shrine of Our Lady of, 
at Lake Titicaca, 187 

Copper, chief mines of Bolivia, 248; 
Bolivian product chiefly exported 
through Arica, 259 

Corn, with kernels of immense size, in 
Peru and Bolivia, 85, 162, 205, 267; 
possibilities of great production in 
Bolivia, 267 

Corocoro, centre of copper-producing 
section, Bolivia, 248 

Cotopaxi, highest active volcano, 25 

Cotton, grown in Colombia, 15; large 
crops of in oasis of Peruvian desert, 
66; of fine grade, 68; possibilities of 
great production in Bolivia, 267 

Crucero Alto, highest pass on South- 
ern Railway of Peru, 136 

Cuzco, the ancient capital of the 
Incas, 145 et seq.; the city of to-day, 
156 et seq. 


De Ulloa, Antonio, makes early report 
of platinum discoveries in Colombia, 


20 
Desaguadero River, outlet of Lake 
Titicaca, 186 
Desert of Peru, location and extent, 
_ 64 at seq. 


Duck shooting on Lake Titicaca, 192; 
Duran, terminal of Guayaquil and 
Quito Railroad, 46 


PARP iaes of the Indians of the Andes, 


Ecuador, comparative size, 3; trade 
with the United States, 28; size and 
topography, 32; minerals, 33; form 
of government, 50 

Education, of the natives in Peru, 184; 
in Bolivia, 230 

El Telégrafo, inaugurates newspaper 
delivery by airplane from Guaya- 
quil, 29 

Emeralds, practically aH of world’s 
supply produced in Colombia, 21 

Eten, Peru, passengers landed under 
difficulties at, 71 


Farm implements, of the Peruvian 
Indians, 138 

Farming on the Andean plateaus, 136 
et seq. 

Fire worship of the Incas, 149 

Fish, varieties in Lima markets, 86 

Frick, Henry C., interested in Cerro 
de Pasco Copper Corporation, 113 

Fruits and vegetables, of the Lima 
markets, 85; in great variety at 
Arequipa, Peru, 130; in La Paz 
markets, 206 

Fuel, scarcity of, in Bolivia, 208 


Galapagos Islands, strangest in the 
world, 51; of strategic importance, 


53 

Galera Tunnel, on Central Railway of 
Peru, 100 

German army aviators, in the air- 
plane service between Colombian 
cities, 12 

German trade in Peru, reéstablish- 
ment of, 89 

Gold, the rich mines of Colombia ante- 
date Spanish conquest, 18; rich 
deposits in Peru, 103, 118; stories 
of the buried treasure of the Incas, 
165 et seg.; production of Bolivian 
mines, 248 

Golf, at La Paz, 212 

Gorgas, Colonel William C., in co- . 
operation with Rockefeller Foun- 
dation cleans up Guayaquil, 31 

Grace, W. R., & Co., chief American 


277 


INDEX 


business firm on South American 
west coast, 90; a power in Bolivia, 
202. 

Guaqui, on Lake Titicaca, 186, 194. 

Guatavita, sacred lake of the gold 
offerings, 19. 

Guayaquil, the city and its people, 25; 
as a commercial port, 28; city 
known as “‘the pest hole of the 
Pacific,” 29, until cleaned up by 
General Gorgas, 31. 

Guayaquil and Quito Railroad, a 
journey over, 46; difficulties in road 
building, 47. 

Guayas, largest river on western side 
of South America, 27. 

Guggenheim tin properties, in Bolivia, 
245. 

Guinea pigs, as food in Lima, 86. 

Gutiérrez, Garcfa, treasure found by, 
166. 


Haciendas of the Andean plateau, 180. 
Haggin, J. B., interested in Cerro de 
Pasco Copper Corporation, 113. 
Harman, Archer, builder of Guaya- 

quil and Quito Railroad, 47. 

Harvard University astronomical ob- 
servatory at Arequipa, 132. 

Hides, an important export of Bolivia, 
259. 

Horse-racing, a rival of bull-fighting in 
Lima, 76. 

Hotels, of Peru, go. 

Huachipairis, curious Indian tribe in 
Peru, 59. 

Huallatiri, Mount, snow-clad peak of 
Bolivia, 198. 

Huancavelica, Peru, mercury mines 
at, 118. 

Huancayo, end of Central Railway 
of Peru, 95, 100. 

Huanchaca_ silver mines, Bolivia, 
worked before Spanish Conquest, 
247. 

Huigra, railroad town in Ecuador, 46. 

Huts, of the native Indians, 179. 


Illimani, Mount, or “Snow Mountain,” 
194. 

Inca Chronicle, monthly magazine 
published at Cerro de Pasco, Peru, 
108. 

ayer a Company, gold mines of, 
118. 


Incas, ancient civilization of the, 145. 

Indians, of Ecuador, religious belief 
and customs, 59; their life on the 
haciendas in practical peonage, 181; 
of eastern Bolivia, 270. 

Industrial mission school, of great 
help to Bolivian Indians, 227. 

Investments, of Americans in South 
American bonds, 4. 

Ipecac, important export of Colombia, 
15. 

Iquitos, Peru, one of the chief rubber 
ports of the world, 102. 

Irrigation, in Rimac Valley, Peru, 99; 
along Vilcanota River in Peru, 139; 
ancient irrigating canals of the 
Incas, 147, in Bolivia, 266. 

Island of the Moon, or Coati, in Lake 
Titicaca, 1go. 

Island of the Sun, in Lake Titicaca, 
189. 

Ivory nuts, an important export of 
Ecuador, 43; of Peru, 102. 


Jequetepeque Valley, Peru, site of 
ancient civilization at, 74. 

Jivaro Indians, and their custom of 
curing heads, 54 et seq. 

Juliaca, station at fork of Southern 
Railway of Peru, 136. 


Labour, condition of the native, 181 
et seq. 

Lake Pampa Aullagas, or Lake Poopo, 
186, 187. 

Lake Titicaca, oil wells at, 69; highest 
steam-navigated body of water, 186 
et seq. 

Lake Urcos, buried treasure of, 165. 

La Paz, commercial centre of Bolivia, 
194; Sunday the great market day, 
202; the American Institute and 
its good work, 229; school of avia- 
tion established at, 254. 

La Paz Cathedral, in course of erec- 
tion for eighty years, 211. 

La Paz-Antofagasta railway, trip 
over, to Oruro, 233. 

Lima, the capital of Peru, 75 et 
seq.; the shops and markets, 84 et 
seq. 

Liquor, a curse to the modern native, 
174 et seq. 

Llallagua tin mine, Bolivia, produc- 
tion of 243. 


278 


~ a 


INDEX 


Llamas, domesticated by the Incas, 
147; beast of burden of the Andes, 
100, 105, 141, 208. 

Llama manure, chief fuel of La Paz 
208, 209; as fuel for the tin mines at 
Oruro, 241. 

Lobitos oil fields, in Peru, 69. 


Machu-Picchu, ruins of ancient Inca 
city, 154. 

Malaria, continuously prevalent in 
Guayaquil, 29, until eradicated by 
General Gorgas, 31. 

Manco Ccapac, the first great Inca 
ruler, 145; his palace at Cuzco, 151, 
152; the sacred rock of, in Lake 
Titicaca, 189. 

Markets and shops, of Lima, 84 ef 
seq.; of Cuzco, 161; of La Paz, 202. 

Matarani, proposed as new port of 
entry for Arequipa, Peru, 127. 

Matucana, station on Central Railway 
of Peru, 100. 

Meals, on shipboard, 8. 

Meiggs, Henry, builder of steel pier at 
Pacasmayo, 71; of Central Railway 
of Peru, 95. 

Melgarejo, former dictator of Bolivia, 
cause of severance of diplomatic 
relations with Great Britain, 260. 

Mercury mines, at MHuancavelica, 
Peru, 118. 

Meteorological station, removed from 
Mt. Chachani to Mt. Misti, 133. 
Methodist Episcopal Church, estab- 
lishes American Institute at La Paz, 
229, secondary school at Cocha- 

bamba, 230. 

Metropolitan Cathedral, Sucre, wealth- 
iest in Bolivia, 201. 

Military service compulsory in Bolivia, 


227. 

Misti, Mount, great volcano near 
Arequipa, 129; Harvard University 
astronomical observatory on, 132; 
meteorological station removed to, 
133; height of, 133; slope covered 
with lava, 136. 

Mollendo, port of entry for Arequipa, 
Peru, 127. 

Morococha mines, at the top of the 
Andes, 94. 

Mosquitoes, responsible for malaria 
and yellow fever epidemics at 
Guayaquil, 31. 


Mummies, of ancient races of Peru, 
73; in La Paz museum, 222. 

Muzo, emerald mines at, worked 
under Colombian government mon- 
opoly, 22. 


Oases, irrigated, in the Peruvian 
desert, 66. 

Oil, development of industry in 
Colombia, 21; Santa Elena of 


fields, Ecuador, 34; wells and re- 
fineries in Peru, 69; the deposits in 
Bolivia, 249. 

Oil-burning locomotives on Ecuador 
railway, 46; on Central Railway of 
Peru, 96. 

Ollantaytambo, Inca ruins of, 154. 

“One-way”’ highways in the Andes, 
101. 

Oroya, on Central Railway of Peru, 
100. 

Oruro, trip to from La Paz, 232; an 
unattractive city, 234; the great 
tin mines at, 241. 

Our Lady of Copacabana, shrine of 
at Lake Titicaca, 187. 


Pacasmayo, Peru, has steel pier and 
railroad, 71. 

Paco-vicufia, cross between the al- 
paca and vicufia, 144. 

Paintings, in Cathedral of Cuzco, 158. 

Paita, in the desert section of Peru, 67, 

Pampa Aullagas, or Lake Poopo, 186. 

Panama, attains independence from 
Colombia, 10; great yellow fever 
epidemic of 1905, 30. 

Panama hats, production in Colombia, 
15; sold by the natives at Guaya- 
quil, 27; made in Ecuador Colom- 
bia, and Peru, not Panama, 70; how 
made, 71. 

Pan-American railway route, amount 
completed, 256. 

Papayas, in Guayaquil markets, 27. 


_ Paraguay, comparative size, 3. 


Parana, potentially the world’s richest 
bread basket, 4. 

Parinacota, Mount, snow-clad peak of 
Bolivia, 198. 

Patifio, Simon lI., 
Bolivia, 243. 

Peddlers, women and men, of Peru, 87. 

Penny, Andrew, made fortune in 
Bolivian tin mine, 244. 


“tin king” of 


279 


INDEX 


Peonage, in Ecuador, 62; on Andean 
haciendas, 181. 

Pepper, use in food of Peruvians, 86. 

Peru, comparative size and topo- 
graphy, 64; the great desert district, 
65; the president, cabinet, and 
legislative branches, 83. 

Peruvian Corporation, plans to de- 
velop agricultural resources of 
Andean plateau, 138. 

Petroleum, principal fields of Colom- 
bia, 21; Santa Elena oil fields, in 
Ecuador, 34; wells and refineries 
in Peru, 69; deposits in Bolivia, 
249. | , 

Pichincha, active volcano near Quito, 


47. 
Piura Valley, rich desert oasis in Peru, 


ye 

Pizarro, lands in Ecuador on way to 
conquer Peru, 26; his bones on 
exhibit in Cathedral at Lima, 80. 

Platinum, large deposits of, in Colom- 
bia, 20. 

Pneumonia, danger of, in high alti- 
tudes, 111. 

Poisoned arrows, used by Indians of 
Ecuador, 57, 58; unknown to those 
of Bolivia, 270. 

Pomarapi, Mount, snow-clad peak of 
Bolivia, 198. 

Potatoes, largely used in Peruvian 
menu, 86; Peru the natural home 
of, 162; red, white, and pink, in 
Bolivia, 206. 

Potosi, the great silver-mining centre 
of Bolivia, 246. 

Pottery, of the ancient Incas, 148. 

Puno, on Lake Titicaca, 188. 


Quichuas, chief church-goers of Peru, 
159; once a highly developed race, 
now slaves to alcohol and the coca 
leaf, 174. 

Quinine, an important export of 
Bolivia, 259; yields only small 
profit, 268 

Quisere River, Bolivia, gold being 
found in, 249. 

Quito, airplane service to and from 
Guayaquil, 29; capital of Ecuador, 
45, 47- 


Radio towers, on San Crist6bal hill 
overlooking Lima, 75. 


Railroad, the highest, in the world, 
93 et seq. 

Railroads, tracks submerged by sand 
in Peruvian desert, 67; their devel- 
opment in Bolivia, 252 ef seq. 

Reeds, used for making boats, ropes, 
and baskets by Lake Titicaca 
Indians, 191. 

Religion, more freedom in worship 
in Peru, 82; of the people of the 


Andes, 159. 

Religious beliefs of Indians of the 
Andes, 59. 

Revolutions, frequently occurring in 
Ecuador, 51. 


Rimac River, glacial stream flowing 
through Lima, 76. 

Rimac Valley, agriculture in, 98. 

Rock Forest, a wonderful formation 
in the Andes, 125. 

Rockefeller Foundation, codperates 
with Colonel Gorgas in cleaning up 
Guayaquil, 31. 

Rodadero, the, toboggan slide of the 
Incas, 154. 


Roller coaster trip down the Andes, 


120. 

Rubber, grown in Colombia, 15; im- 
portant export of Ecuador, 42; of 
Peru, 102, 103; of Bolivia, 259; 
extent of the wild forests, 269. 

Ruins, of ancient Inca buildings, 149 
et seqg.; of ancient peoples, in Peru, 


73- 
Ruminagui, buries Inca treasure of 


Quito, 169. 


Sacsahuaman, ancient fortifications of, 
at Cuzco, 151, 152. 

Sajama, Mount, high peak of Bolivia, 
198; Indian legend of, 233. 

Salaverry, Peru, important sugar ex- 
porting town, 73. 

Salt, its effect on civilization of the 
Bolivian Indians, 271. 

Salvadora tin mine, Bolivia, produc- 
tion of, 243. 

iui) Cristébal, hill overlooking Lima, 


Sant Lorenzo, island of, Peru, 75, 91. 

Santa Cruz, centre of production of 
Bolivian oil fields, 249; prospects 
for great future, 266. 

Sea food, of the Lima markets, 86. 

Sheep, on the Peruvian plateau, 140. 


280 


INDEX 


Shops and markets of Lima, 84 ef seq. 

Sicuani, town on Southern Railway of 
Peru, 136. 

Silver mining, in Bolivia, 246. 

Sironés, warlike tribe of Indians in 
eastern Bolivia, 271. 

Soroche, or mountain sickness, 96, 1009, 


258. 

Southern Railway of Peru, head- 
quarters at Arequipa, 130. 

Squier, Ephraim George, researches 
in ruins of Tiahuanaco, 218. 

Standard Oil Company, purchases 
huge tract in Bolivian oil fields, 
249. 

Stock raising, on the Peruvian plateau, 
140. 

Stone masonry, remarkable, of the 
Incas, 151, 152. 

Sucre, legal capital of Bolivia, 200. 

Sugar, large crops of in Peru, 66. 


Talara, petroleum shipping port of 
Peru, 69. 

Tamboraque, the beginning of vege- 
tation, on arid Andes, 

eee es of culture in Bolivia, 


268. 
Temple of the Sun, Aztec structure at 
Cuzco, 149; the treasures of, 166. 
Tenguel, a cacao town in Ecuador, 


41. 

Tiahuanaco, ruins of the oldest city 
in the Americas, 214 ef seq. 

Ticlio, highest point on world’s highest 
tailroad, 94, 100; coasting down the 
Andes from, 121. 

Tin, the great mines of Bolivia, 240 
et seq. 

Titicaca Island, or Island of the Sun, 


189. 

Titicaca, Lake, oil wells at, 69; high- 
ae steam-navigated body of water, 
186. 

Tonka bean, production of in Colom- 
bia and uses of, 15. 

Torture stones of the Inquisition, 151. 

Transportation in Ecuador, difficul- 
ties and high cost, 45, 50. 

Treaty of Anc6n, giving Peruvian 
territory to Chile, 257. 

Trujillo, Peru, founded by Pizarro, 73. 

Tumbez oil wells, in Peru, 69. 


Tungsten, Bolivia the greatest source 
of, 250. 

Tupac Amaru, Inca beheaded at 
Cuzco by Spaniards, 156. 


Urbina, highest station on Ecuador 
railroad, 47. 
Urcos, stories of treasure buried at, 


165. 


Valverde, manuscript of, describing 
hiding place of Atahualpa’s treasure, 
172. 

Vanadium mines, in Peru, 119. 

Vegetable ivory, an important export 
of Ecuador, 43. 

Vegetables and fruits of the Lima 
markets, 85; in great variety at 
Arequipa, Peru, 130; in La Paz 
markets, 206. 

Vicufias and their valuable wool, 143. 

Vilcanota River, Peru, irrigated farms 
along, 139. 

Vitcos, Inca ruins at, 154. 


Water, supplied by peddlers in Peru, 


7. 

West Coast Leader, an American news- 
paper enterprise in Lima, go. 

Wild animal life of eastern Bolivia, 


270. 

Witch doctors, travelling, of the 
Andes, 232. 

Women, more freedom for, in Peru, 
82; as peddlers, in Peru, 87; the 
Indian, of Peru, 107; in the Oruro 
tin mines, 241. 

Wool, Arequipa the chief market of 
Peru, 130; from the high Andes, 


141. 


Yellow fever, for centuries continually 
present in Guayaquil, 29; eradicated 
by General Gorgas, 31. 

Yumbos, peaceable Indians of Ecuador, 


iyi) 
Yungas, the, a district of fertile 


valleys in Bolivia, 199. 
Yuracarés, customs of, 
Bolivia, 271. 


in eastern 


Zaruma gold mines, Ecuador, 34. 
Zarritos, Peru, oil refinery at, 69. 


281 


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